I’d like to share a few posts from a football message board regarding Memorial Day (these posts were made on an around the US Memorial Day Holiday in 2007) and burials in Arlington National Cemetery:

1. I  recently layed my father to rest in Arlinton. I have to say It was the first and I can only hope the last military funeral I have ever been to. But what a true honor it was to be there and experience such a thing. They truly do not forget a man’s service for his country and make every effort to make the families comfortable.

It was quit sobering to hear taps and the 21 gun salute as many times as we did during our service throughout the grounds.

I have to admit prior to this weekend memorial day was a day for remembrance for me but it was also a extra day off from work and grill out and what not. But now its a lot more than that not just becauce of my dad but all of the men and women who we have all lost.

2. Arlington is a very special place, and your Dad now rests in his rightful place among the other heroes.

3. Military burials are extremely emotional. Never experienced a burial at Arlington but my father & Grandfather were both buried at Calverton National Cemetery (as I will be eventually) and the playing of Taps & the presentation of the Flag to the family (my mother in both cases) were the toughest things to handle. Besides being present when both of them passed away those were by far the most emotional situations I ever had to deal with.

4. As a former soldier and member of the 3rd U.S. Infantry “The Old Guard” based at Ft. Myer, Arlington, VA … some of my duties included marching as part of a military escort/marching platoon (dress blues with almost razor-sharp creases, highly polished brass, etc.) for military burials “with honors” at Arlington National Cemetary.

After going through several burials it became pretty routine (almost as if it were like you had iced water running through your veins … basically you were totally focused on performing all of your rifle drill and ceremonial movements with near perfection). Besides, as part of the honor guard you cannot move, glance around, or hardly breathe let alone show/display any emotions.

It was an interesting, honorable, and memorable experience for me to have been a member of the Army’s most prestigious and elite ceremonial unit.

I wish all of the other veterans and active service members alike a very happy and safe Memorial Day!!! May those who served and paid with their lives while protecting the sovereignty and national interests of this great, great country … never be forgotten!!!

5. My grandfather was a SGT in the Air Force during WWII and wow what a service they put on for him in Aug of 2004. I honestly felt like my grandfather was an ex president of the US the way my grandfather and our family were treated during the ceremony. The gun salute and all. It was truly breath taking. Glad to hear your father received the same treatment.

Hart Island is said to be a ghost town with an abandoned church, asylum, and military base. The military base has Nike missile silos left over from the late 50′s and the cold war. These missiles were supposed to shoot Soviet ICBMs out of the sky before they landed in New York City.

But it’s not the abandoned military base that really qualifies Hart Island as a grief tourist destination. That distinction belongs to Potter’s Field.

Potter’s Field on Hart Island has been the burial place for New York’s unclaimed dead bodies since 1869. There are now over 700,000 bodies on Hart Island. This cemetery is unlike more famous and touristy cemeteries:

There are no ceremonies for the dead here on Hart Island.  Inmates from Riker’s Island are assigned burial detail and are ferried over to do the work.  Coffins are stacked beneath the ground–3 high, 10 across, 5 rows deep, between each of the white grave markers–crowding 150 adult bodies into each marked square.  Infant’s coffins are stacked in trenches and buried.

Pere-LaChaise in Paris, France, a burial place for such notable figures as Maria Callas, Modigliani, Jim Morrison, Edith Piaf, Chopin, and Gertrude Stein, is thought to be the most visited cemetery in the world.  When first established in 1804 by Napoleon Bonaparte, the cemetery attracted few funerals and fewer visitors due to its remote location.  In an effort to exploit the potential profit from tourism, marketing strategists moved the remains of Moliere and the legendary lovers Heloise and Abelard to a more accessible site.  As more famous people were interred in Pere-LaChaise, it soon became a much sought-after burial place.  In the rows and divisions of gravesites for the rich and famous, there is only one monument that remains unknown.

Today, tourists come each year to view the grand mausoleums, private chapels, and elaborate tombs of the people who made history.  Crowds of melancholics and incurable romantics, grief seekers, and even so-called professional mourners arrive by the thousands to Pere-LaChaise.  Aside from the ghoulish pleasure they may receive, there is little cause in most cases for quiet reflection and no apparent connection with the dead.  Cemetery tourism, oddly enough, does seem to provide a great deal of satisfaction for many in reliving the excitement and passion of long ago.  Some tourists bring the appropriate flowers, wreaths, or other tributes, while others simply follow tradition, leaving lipstick kisses on the headstone of the infamous and flamboyant Oscar Wilde.  Since the cemetery is quite large, with over 300,000 burial sites and five World War I memorials, navigational maps are provided for tours of the premises.  Visitors and tourists bring lunch on family outings and holiday treks and enjoy the roasted chestnuts and sausages sold just outside the cemetery gates.  At times, the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and choir singers perform at open gravesites, adding the customary funeral music to the burial ritual.  Pere La-Chaise is open Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., Saturday from 8:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., and Sunday from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.  Admission is free.
 
In a less remarkable, distant corner of Vienna, Austria, lies the tranquil Friedhof der Namenlosen, the Cemetery of the Nameless.  The first to be buried here were the bodies of strangers who perished and washed ashore in the floods of the Danube in the mid to late 1800′s.  Most of the 500 victims were so badly decomposed, it was impossible to identify them.  A few simple crosses and broken stones reflect the tragedy and sorrow of accidental death, murder, and unrequited love.  After 1940 when the last funeral was held, few visitors returned to grieve their loss.  The Cemetery of the Nameless has no elaborate headstones, few living flowers, and few words in memoriam.  Candles no longer burn for these ghosts of the past who rest amid the rocks and boulders now covered with brambles and thorns.  No names of famous people can be found, no music can be heard, and no professional speakers orate, and yet, the symbolism of the Cemetery of the Nameless haunts us in its neglect and isolation.  There is no admission charge to this lonely place where grief is far too overwhelming to contemplate.

In the movie Before Sunrise, the two lovers meet on a train to Vienna, a city, according to Freud, that has a peculiar obsession for death and melancholia.  In one night of wandering the streets of the city, they discover life, love, and romance.  Their attraction for each other and eagerness to share the past continues to grow as each carefree hour goes swiftly by.  In their visit to the Cemetery of the Nameless, we sense the longing of a woman to recapture her youth and innocence, as she recalls a similar visit as a child.  The scene of nostalgia and romantic illusion leaves us with a feeling of sadness, as we wonder if love too is subject to time and as unpredictable as life itself.  The cemetery is somehow symbolic of opportunities missed and the reality of knowing that some things are truly lost and forgotten, only to be buried in the memories of yesterday.

It has been said that cemetery tourism for some is an “aphrodisiac for necrophilia,” for others, a temporary feeling of sentimentalism and grief, but for many, it is just another form of entertainment.  Cemetery tourism has become far more than a popular tourist attraction; it is, in reality, an institution.

Sharon L. Slayton