E Pluribus

Today I went with my wife to Rosecrans Military Cemetery on Cabrillo Point south of San Diego. This garden of stone memorializes over 100,000 veterans of America’s wars. As we walked to the gravesite that had special meaning for us, one thing became abundantly clear. Carved into the stones were the names of the fallen, their ranks, the wars in which they served and religious symbols appropriate to the particular veteran. This place is as evocative as any war memorial and it conjures visions of battles far away in time and place. Here and there a citation was noted…a Navy Cross, a Silver Star, a Purple Heart.

Another fact was manifest on the symbols and signs. The names told a powerful story. In one small section I saw the names Rodriguez, Chin, Levy and Smith in close proximity; the Christian cross The Star of David , The Star and Crescent were all there to remind us that the ultimate sacrifice was made by people of all ethnic backgrounds and not a few generations.

Though I came from a generation that energetically protested the war in Vietnam, I never protested the people who fought it… they were victims too. There are-of course- too many wars but there are too few people who serve and their sacrifices deserve remembering.

Once I stood at the Vietnam Memorial in DC and saw a man covered in medals and wearing a boonie hat. I shook his hand and told him that I hated the war and loved him for his service. “I hated the war too,”he said and added,”I’ve been waiting to hear that for a long time” . I left as he was taking rubbings of the names he had known.

It is very hard to hold a hatred of war and love for the war fighter in one’s mind and this trip to Rosecrans made it even harder. But one thing was perfectly clear as Arthur Ashe put it : “true heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic ” It is as quiet and monolithic as a garden of stone.

May they rest in peace.