Honor Guard and Navy Band in formation above the Columbarium at the national cemetery. Arlington House, R.E. Lee’s home, sits at the crest of the hill. Photo Socotra.
Mac was waiting in the lobby as I pulled up in the Bluesmobile in the alley in front of The Madison. The service at the Old Chapel was scheduled for 0900- nine o’clock sharp- and with the competition of the daily commuters trying to get on post we were anxious not to be late.
That put us in the pew about a half hour early, but that was fine.
“You know, they ought to put curtains or something on the walls,” said Mac, leaning over. “It would cut down the echo in here. I can barely understand what they are saying.”
I nodded, and surveyed the growing crowd. The Chapel slowly filled up as the organist began the prelude. I realized I had not brought a handkerchief and kicked myself. This was likely to be emotional, between the ceremony that will mark the end of Kurt’s life, and the chaos that is sweeping through mine at the moment.
I saw Pastor Mary Davila talking to the Sergeant near the pulpit, wearing her collar and civilian clothes. She had performed the Memorial service out in Leesburg almost three months ago. She is a bundle of energy, the Pastor is. Petite, she is an avid sportswoman whose interests spread beyond the chapel walls.
She is an equestrian who breeds and shows Morgan horses, is reportedly a fanatical UNC hoops fan, and stays fit with tennis and running. Her visage showed none of that this morning. She was focused, and with a last admonition from the Army, she ducked out the side door to don her sparkling white vestments with the rope belt.
The admonition from the Sergeant was undoubtedly about time. They have extremely strict limits on the length of the service, and there are a lot of moving parts to these interments. The Service band, caisson and honor guard have to muster in formation out in the parking lot, which means the buses and horses have to be staged.
The day must go in a precision lockstep, with a and if things get off track early the cascade of disorder is about what happens in bad weather at O’Hare International airport. They are running around thirty funerals a day at Arlington- some large, some small, and with a variety of levels of military honors.
Between the Old and New Chapels and the Administration building, there is something happening every hour, and time is of the essence.
Time. With time there is healing, Pastor Davila said, once the service was begun, and Kurt is whole and at peace. The delay imposed by the schedule at Arlington and the actual sad event is such that the pain is drawn out over weeks. Mary commented on it from the pulpit, observing that numbness in the face of tragedy is the initial reaction, and by the time the funeral rolls around, that has passed and the real raw pain still lingers.
Time is elastic, I thought, sitting on the hard pew. It had been high-summer warm on the day of Kurt’s memorial at St. James out in Leesburg. I remembered how the black suit dampened over the starched white shirt I wore. Nearly three months later, the morning was crisp, almost too chilly for comfort, though the sun was bright and cheery.
Mac and I had our topcoats staged in the backseat of the car against the cold that was liable to cloak the Columbarium down the hill.
The order of the rest of the service was likewise brisk. Someone with a good voice was seated behind us, and “Amazing Grace” brought tears to my eyes, and I was finished off by verses one and four of “Eternal Father, Strong to Save.”
It is emotional enough with that first verse that cries out for mercy to those in peril on the sea. The fourth verse is the one for the fliers, and when the words rolled over me I could not finish singing, thinking of Raven:
Lord, guard and guide the men who fly,
Through the great spaces of the sky;
Be with them traversing the air,
In darkening storms or sunshine fair.
O God, protect the men who fly,
Through lonely ways beneath the sky.
Tears ran down my cheeks. I hate that. But I can’t tell you how proud I was to have been part of the system that produced the young men who carried Kurt’s remains, and the triangle of the blue field with stars of the folded flag. Crisp, graceful and composed, they made this solemn and dignified, quite unlike the chaos and violence that brought us all here, and the long silence that will follow.
Mac and I followed the honor guard of two, the pastor and family out into the brilliant light and manned up the police cruiser to join the cortege. We snaked at marching pace through the back gate to the cemetery and down the big hill that marks the end of Virginia’s Piedmont.
We followed Dave’s hot Porsche Panamera. Mac liked it a lot. “I hear he has 500 horses under the hood,” he said as we marked time in the long column, the powerful vehicles harnessed to the measured timeless pace of the horses and the marching formation.
We passed the stones that mark the older graves at the top of the hill, and then the more thickly placed formations of white stone that mark in-ground inurnments on the steeped shoulders of the hill. We passed Section 64, where Mac’s grave is located.
“My wife Billie is keeping dibs on it for me,” he said.
Mac looks down the row in Section 64 where his grave is located. Photo Socotra.
“That is unsettling,” I replied, “but it seems like a comfort. I have no idea where I am going to wind up. I used to think the Columbarium was sort of impersonal, but now I don’t know.”
“In ground for me,” said Mac. “Already settled.”
I looked over and saw the gray sandstone bulk of the Pentagon rising to the south, behind the white markers in Section 64. Eventually we turned left to follow the caisson to the Columbarium, and were directed to park in two columns. The thin bright sun had brought a little warmth to the morning, and Mac was able to walk to the ceremonial canopy where Kurt’s flag was unfolded and folded again in the ritual by the clean-cut kids who make the banner snap with energy at each fold.
The starry blue triangle was passed to the white-gloved Commander who represented the Naval District of Washington. The identification badge on his chest signified his day job was at the White House, and his sword hung with grave dignity as he presented the flag to Kurt’s widow.
Then, the ceremony done, Mary led Bob and Anita back to where the niche awaited in the vast bunker-like Columbarium. If there is anything more poignant than watching a father and mother carry the ashes of their child to the grave, I am not sure what it might be.
The longest walk. Bob and Anita Juengling bear the ashes of their son to his grave. Photo Socotra.
Pastor Mary had some brief remarks in the aisle where Kurt’s niche is located, uniforms and family crowded around, and Kurt’s earthly remains were placed inside the niche and the green cloth curtain closed them up.
Bob cleared his throat, and said “We will be having a reception at the Officer’s Club, and would like all who have the time to join us there.”
Mac had retreated to the Bluesmobile, not being up to the long walk from the canopy back into the maze of the Columbarium.
“Do you have time to go to the reception, Admiral?” I asked him as I climbed in and fired up the V-8.”
He gave me a thin smile. “Time is about all I have,” he said. I nodded, and then we drove back up the hill.
Copyright 2011 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com