A Marine comrade, reflecting in an email early this morning on his many years of regular visits to the Vietnam Memorial Wall on Memorial Days,  stirred me to take the 30 minute drive and visit Arlington National Cemetery this morning.  It would be crowded in certain places, but solitude, my preference, is not hard to find. (click on images to enlarge.)

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But before I moved to quiet places, I aimed to visit at least two of my Marine Basic School (1966) classmates. Classmates reading this, of course know them. One is Tom King, also a University of Rochester classmate of mine and two other Basic School mates.  He was killed in July 1967–in a battle in the DMZ, which became the subject of a remembrance in the New York Times “Vietnam 1967 Newsletter.” (some notes on the series here.)

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The other, Jerry Zimmer was a Marine Aviator who was killed in the notoriously dangerous Que Son Valley southwest of Danang.  On a mission to support a reconnaissance patrol in trouble, the F-4 he was flying was shot down. He and his RIO crashed into a mountainside in rugged terrain. Their bodies have yet to be recovered, and so a memorial stone stands in Arlington for Jerry, call-sign Jackpot.  Jerry’s wife, Elaine, continues the search to this day and has some hopeful indicators.

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At least three other members of our Basic School Class lie in rest in Arlington.

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I suppose countless web sites show images of Arlington more moving than the below. I simply offer them in companionship to any Marine brothers and friends who might have taken the walk with me–and in memory of other comrades of all services who lost their lives in Vietnam and all other conflicts and are buried in countless other places–at home and abroad.

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Given the continuing commemoration of veterans of the Vietnam War, it was no surprise those vets were much in evidence, but more than ever I overheard conversations about the wars fought since then, in Iraq and Afghanistan. Would that were not needful.

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And now, mostly just scenes.

 

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The Pentagon, in the center of the image. A slight mist was present throughout my morning.

 

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Solitude–and sadness of another kind–is easy to find in Section 27, which, between 1864 and 1868 was used to bury former slaves who had moved to Washington, DC. Some were refugees and some had served the Union Army in some capacity.

 

 

 

The number buried there is just over 3,600. As the closeup below shows, the identities of many were not known or known simply, as Mrs. Brown, on the right.

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The story is told in freedmenscemetery.org

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The below speak for themselves, I think.

Semper Fidelis