100 Years of honored glory

Nov. 11 marks the 100th anniversary of the United States’ Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery. A century ago, President Warren G. Harding received a flag draped casket high atop a hill overlooking Washington, D.C. and posthumously conferred a Medal of Honor to the warrior as a symbol of all who had unselfishly, and oftentimes, unrecognized, made the ultimate sacrifice for our country.

“Here rests in honored glory, an American soldier, known but to God.”

After two years of formal engagement in the First World War, 117,000 soldiers and sailors had paid that ultimate price. In appreciation of those who did so and never returned, or did so without family or friends who could identify them, Congress authorized the creation of a single grave that would eternally to represent them all.

On Memorial Day 1921, four bodies were disinterred from American National Cemeteries in France.A young veteran who had been wounded in the war, Edward Younger, was given the honor of selecting the one of the four who would be brought home as a symbol for all others who had died in service to his nation unknown. The battle scarred sergeant walked forward, placed a wreath of white roses on the randomly chosen casket, and America had its first warrior of the Tomb of the Unknowns.

The casket was then secured aboard the Navy cruiser, U.S.S. Olympia and was brought to Washington, D.C. where it lay in state under the Capitol dome as tens of thousands of mourners passed to pay their respects.

Two days later, in a horse drawn procession down Pennsylvania Avenue, the caisson bearing the casket crossed the Potomac River and wound its way up the gradual slopes of Arlington to the front of the amphitheatre which had been built the year previous to hold audiences for large ceremonies and committals within the cemetery.

At the time, however, there was only an open crypt dug six feet into the ground with nothing but a flat plinth of marble to cover the grave. The casket was lowered as President Harding bowed his head and the sounds of taps played from a bugle echoing across the surrounding hillsides.

Streams of mourners stretching to the cemetery’s gates stood in lines across the burial grounds in remembrance of their own loves ones. Five years later, the U.S. House and Senate authorized the expenditure of $50,000 for the creation of a larger, more elaborate, monument.

Seventy-five artists and architects submitted plans for the privilege of designing the memorial. In 1929, the military’s Fine Arts Commission approved the concept for a single eight foot tall by thirteen foot long block of marble to be installed atop the grave. The artist of the concept, Thomas H. Jones, of New York, had been a soldier in the First World War and felt a special kinship to those he was honoring.

Finding the proper stone became a challenge. A single piece weighing 50 tons was needed and a quarry in Colorado was found to provide it. Unfortunately, once the stone was cut, a crack and inclusion were discovered, and the original slab had to be replaced. The process was slowed by the effects of the Great Depression (and difficulties of locating a flawless block of rock that size), until, finally, it was laid in place in 1931.

The artist then spent four months on site sculpting the images of three allegorical women and men representing peace, valor, and victory, forming the east facade of the monument. On the west side he inscribed the iconic words “Here rests in honored glory, an American soldier, known but to God.” The entire stele (a large stone slab) once completed, was dedicated in a formal ceremony April 9, 1932.

With a lone soldier of the 3rd U.S. Infantry marching in front of it in half-hour shifts 24 hours a day, that is how it remained until 1958 when the casket of a veteran of the Second World War was selected by Medal of Honor recipient, William Charette, to embody the collective unknown soldiers and sailors of the world’s deadliest conflagration.

At the same time, a second casket was picked out by Ned Lyle, a Master Sergeant and recipient of the Distinguished Service Cross in 1951, which he received for charging an enemy gun emplacement to save the lives of his comrades. To him fell the honor of choosing the body who would represent the unknown victims of the Korean conflict. Both caskets were laid to rest at either side of the stele by President Dwight Eisenhower.

Within seven years, America was again at war, this time in Southeast Asia. Nearly 60,000 U.S. personnel would perish before the fighting ended in 1975.

To acknowledge them, and those who remain nameless, President Ronald Reagan presided over the ceremonial burial of that conflict’s unknown soldier (or sailor or airman) on Memorial Day 1984. His remains, with the development of DNA sequencing, were later identified in 1998 as that of Air Force Lieutenant, Michael Blassie, and disinterred for burial near the family’s home in St. Louis.

Today, every member of the U.S. military is required to submit a sample of saliva to be held for DNA testing in the event of their loss in combat. With this biological technology, it is entirely possible that never again will there need to be added another casket at the nation’s most sacred military shrine.

Few members of the civilian sector realize they themselves may perform a similar tribute to the remaining three. Anyone (armed forces or otherwise) may place a wreath at the tombs. The author of this column, as a former worker at Arlington, met many a school student or scout from Iowa, and across the country, who came with a beautiful ring of flowers to pay their respects.

It is a somber, and humbling, experience that has brought tears to the eyes or many, including myself, offering a lesson in civics and humanity.

May this lesson, and the monument around which it is learned, remain for another 100 years … and beyond.

David V. Wendell is a Marion historian, author and special events coordinator specializing in American history.