Today
is the 70th anniversary of D-Day, one of those rare world-changing
events that actually live up to such a phrase.
Last night, 70 years to the moment that our transports were approaching
Normandy and paratroopers were dropping behind enemy lines; Share Our Strength
was part of a small group participating in a wreath laying ceremony at the Tomb
of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery.
We were the only nonprofit
included among Washington’s most prominent business leaders. We’d been invited
by the Greater Washington Board of Trade, in no small part due to their great
respect for our colleague Tamra McGraw.
I like to also think they recognize Share Our Strength for a different
but important form of service to our nation. Our host was Major General Jeffrey
Buchanan who served with both the 82nd Airborne Division and the 101 Airborne
and is currently Commanding General of the Military District of Washington DC.
General Buchanan and his
colleagues explained the rigorous commitment of the “tomb sentinels” who
comprise the 24 hour a day honor guard. They volunteer for the assignment despite
being held to almost impossibly high standards. They are measured on more than 100 criteria
from the crease in their slacks to the alignment of their eyes. If anything is
more than 1/64th of an inch off they are cited for a deficiency. Two
deficiencies means being taken off honor guard duty.
In 1984, on the
40th anniversary of D-Day, General Buchanan was then a young soldier
selected to parachute on to Omaha beach in commemoration of the Americans who
gave their lives to liberate France and turn the tide of World War II. He paused to gaze at Arlington’s 400,000
graves behind him. “This really is sacred ground” he said with a sweep of his
hand. He asked that we think about those men today. And he reminded us that from General Eisenhower
on down, no one had any idea or guarantee, how things would turn out.
When the
ceremony ended around 6:00, I excused myself from dinner with General Buchanan
and the Board of Trade and instead walked the deserted roads to Section 60
which is reserved for those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. On the other wide of the cemetery, far from the
crowd of veterans, tourists and others who had gathered at our wreath laying
ceremony, only two small families of four or five huddled together around
gravestones about 50 yards apart.
From a distance
they could barely be distinguished among the field of white headstones, but as
one got closer you could see their arms around each other’s shoulders and heads
bowed. Sacrifice and faith and honoring memory were
not history lessons for them, so much as the oxygen they breathe. I had walked
over to visit one grave in particular, the son of a family friend, but two
hours later as the sun set I was still standing among them all.
