Family lore holds that the name inscribed in pale stone in Arlington National Cemetery’s columbarium above the name of my daughter’s grandfather was the alias George Sohl used during his service as a Naval intelligence officer.
The truth is tucked away in some Pentagon filing cabinet, or it has disappeared into the past, save for the tantalizing mystery it proffers every time I have the honor to visit Arlington.
It takes a little effort to find the columbarium with its stone walls filled with names. It’s not on one of Arlington’s main roads leading to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier or the hill where the Kennedys are buried.
My wife and I wandered beyond the columbarium on a September morning 20 years ago and came upon a simple monument on the cemetery’s edge where visitors had tucked notes into the monument’s stone seams.
Across the Potomac River, the Pentagon loomed squat and solid, and it took me a minute to realize the monument was a tribute to lives lost a year earlier on Sept. 11.
We ended up in Arlington’s Section 60 on a wet June afternoon 15 years ago and saw people, many of them young, huddled in front of graves. Some clutched flowers, others had brought balloons and personal mementos, and we realized that Father’s Day for these people meant visiting the graves of dads, sons, husbands, and fiancés killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I had the honor to be present for William Manning’s Arlington burial. His service to our country spanned through World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. He shared an affinity for military life with my late father-in-law and he was captured on Wake Island in December, 1941. The Japanese made him work in a mine and I’m told it was an experience he rarely, if never, talked about.
The burial unfolded with crisp military efficiency and I couldn’t help but feel Bill Manning wasn’t being laid to rest under a pall of sadness, but rather, he was being welcomed to Arlington by thousands of silent comrades.
I think about my visits to Arlington on the days leading up to Memorial Day and I’m glad that every day I walk down Monument Avenue in Swampscott is Memorial Day, if only for the time it takes me to recite the Pledge of Allegiance once the big town flagpole comes into view and then whisper four words as I pass the memorials saluting Jared Raymond and Jennifer Harris.
“Freedom is not free,” I remind myself as I spot parents walking their kids across Linscott Park to school and see the banner of inclusivity waving in the breeze in front of First Church.
I walk without fear of missiles and artillery shells driving my family into a cellar to hide. A painting in my den memorializes the defense of Wake Island and makes it easy for me to remember Bill Manning’s service.
I’m overdue to visit Arlington again, and maybe my granddaughter — George Sohl’s great-granddaughter — will be with me on my next trip. She will look at the letters engraved in the smooth white stone and ask, “Who was he?” I will answer, “He was the brother of all the other people whose names you see here.”
I will never be able to repay the debt of gratitude I owe those who we remember on Memorial Day; but l never forget that the debt is owed.
