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Washing Angel's Wings
(May 2, 2010) |
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On Veteran's Day we honor the men and women who served this country in the armed
forces of our nation. We have parades with young active duty troops marching in
their uniforms. You will find the old veterans in the crowd watching. More and
more veterans are wearing distinctive clothing, hats, and badges and pins of
rank out in public. They are announcing to the country that they served in the
military and want the public to know it.
The main point of Veteran's Day is to thank and actively remember our living
veterans, these defenders of our freedom who served and then came home to get on
with their lives. Memorial Day is for the defenders who did not come home to
marry, to build a life, or enjoy the freedom they help preserved. | |
Van E. Harl |
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There are over twelve different towns and cities in this country that claim
title to the location where Memorial Day started. While stationed in Columbus,
Mississippi I was informed that the Friendship Cemetery in Columbus was the true
starting place for the annual, regular recognition of our dead soldiers of the
Civil War. In 1866 the local southern women were placing flowers on the graves
of confederate soldiers who died at the Battle of Shiloh. They noticed the
graves of Union dead were overgrown with weeds and generally neglected. Enemies
or not, these dead men were the loved ones of American families who, like the
confederate dead, had given their lives for a cause they believed in.
These grieving southern women cleared the graves, of perhaps the very men who
killed their family members, then place flowers on those Union graves. Their
unbiased efforts created the tradition of “Decoration Day” and this eventually
melted into the national day of remembrance for our killed in action that became
Memorial Day.
At the end of the Civil War the Union dead were removed from their first burial
sites and re-interred at the many national cemeteries that were established.
There are no Union dead buried at Friendship Cemetery, at least none that are
known. There are 2194 listed confederate dead in that cemetery but only 345
soldiers and a female army nurse have names and units on the grave markers. The
remaining 1848 headstones are marked “Unknown Confederate Dead”. In battle,
Confederate and Union troops fell and died next to each other and then were
buried in haste. If the truth were known I would suggest that Union dead are
still at Friendship Cemetery.
I used to walk the cemetery looking for markers that had some of my different
family surnames on them. In Mississippi the green moss grows on the headstones
and can eventually completely obscure the names. I contacted a National Cemetery
and spoke to a caretaker about how to clean the markers. Using this information
I walked the rows of headstones with my buckets of water and scrub brushes and I
cleaned the markers of fallen confederates that I shared surnames with. There
was no way I could clean them all. I found a marked headstone of a soldier from
the 37th Alabama surrounded by hundreds of “Unknown” markers. It was completely
obscured, but by the end of that visit I had it ready.
Over the course of many trips to Friendship Cemetery I cleaned the “Unknown”
markers around that lone marked headstone. “Friendship” is not a military
cemetery; it was established in 1849 and is still used. Besides the military
markers, many of the pre-1900 headstones are extremely interesting. There are a
number of angels standing on or near headstones. If the angels are weeping it
usually means a child is buried there. The angels have the same moss problem.
Because of this I also found myself washing angel's wings at “Friendship”. It
has been over five years and I am sure the moss is starting to win the battle
again.
There are thousands of cemeteries in this country that have those very
distinctive military headstones. There is a tradition of placing American flags
at these graves on Memorial Day. I believe we need to broaden that tradition and
provide a little gentle care, cleaning and even maintenance for these last
reminders of those who made the ultimate sacrifice for this nation. Local
cemeteries do not have the money or manpower to keep these fallen hero's final
markers cared for in the manner they deserve. Honor a veteran this year and
every year by tending to a headstone.
We buried another veteran today. | |
By
Van E. Harl
Copyright
2007 About Author:
Major Van E. Harl, USAF Ret., was a career police officer in the U.S. Air
Force. He was the Deputy Chief of police at two Air Force Bases and the
Commander of Law Enforcement Operations at another. Major Harl is a graduate of
the U.S. Army Infantry School, the Air Force Squadron Officer School and the Air
Command and Staff College. After retiring from the Air Force he was a state
police officer in Nevada.
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