(Saying farewell at Arlington National Cemetery)
It was April 16th, the Day After the funeral. The pictures had been posted, the toasts were raised at the wake at Willow. The haunting sound of the highland pipes covered the retreat of hundreds of officers and Sailors from the grave site. Mac’s earthly remains were given over to the soil, and to the patient presence of his beloved Sara V., better known as Billie. The Boston Bombers who hit the Marathon finish line were still on the loose.
Mac had passed late the previous year, Oct 19th 2012, at peace and with his family all around. I was in Colorado at the time, and I got the news it speared me with regret, though I must say Mac’s final transition was conducted in the way that he preferred. His heart was giving out, the cardio experts at the Virginia Medical Center could not intervene surgically due to Mac’s age. He was alert, and asked what his options were. The Doctors said “Hospice,” and with that, Mac made his decision and was at peace. It was his choice all the way, just as it had been all his life.
There is a lag of months between the memorial services at Arlington and the actual interment. On this crisp day in April, the Old Guard scheduled the funeral, and Mac’s earthly remains were brought by turns to the Old Post Chapel at Fort Myer and then to Section 66, Lot 7135 on the flat plain of the lower cemetery. The Office of Naval Intelligence turned out in force, and the honor guard of enlisted and officers were led by three three-star Admirals.
I took a hundred or so and posted them to social media. Pictures are not reality, of course, but the pageant, dignity and tradition displayed is clear enough from those images. I have attended far too many of these funerals and will probably attend only one more, one in which I do not anticipate a speaking part. This was one for the ages, and is going to stand in memory for all of us.
The haunting sound of Amazing Grace and Scotland The Brave were the last echoes of the official ceremony. Mac had been a piper in his youth, and this completed another circle per his detailed instructions. The Piper is a physicist in his day job, by the way, and a good man. But his day trade is just as relevant as his skill on the pipes.
But of course there were a lot of good women and men there that gray afternoon to say farewell and Godspeed. They paid tribute to a man whose like does not come along very often, and who stood as an icon of his age. And a very good friend to many.
The world being what it is, we did not know of the latest outrage until we got to Willow to join family and friends to celebrate what will stand in my mind as the finest example of a private interment at the Nation’s place of ultimate honor.
Mac would have been proud, I think. Now we have to turn back to the events of the world we have all made, and it will be another grim bit of business. Mac would have had something to say about it, but his cares are not now of this world.
We are on our own now.
Copyright 2017 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com