In light of this weekend’s patriotic celebrations, I thought it would be a good time to share a more sobering experience I had recently.
While we were back east a few weeks ago, we visited Arlington National Cemetery. It was my first time to visit and there are few experiences like it.
We saw the Tomb of the Unknowns and were able to watch a few different groups lay wreaths there for the fallen.
The memorial for the victims of the Challenger explosion was something I wanted to view. Some of my earliest memories are of this tragedy being on TV and my family talking about it. I know it sounds unbelievable, but I wasn’t yet 2-years-old when that happened.
Both Kevin’s Pop-Pop and my Uncle Mike served on the USS Forrestal. Pop-Pop was aboard during the tragic fire that killed so many men. I got a picture of Forrestal’s grave before we were removed from the grass. Silly us, we didn’t know that you weren’t allowed on the grass unless you were there for a family member. It certainly wasn’t listed in any of the information we picked up at the visitor’s center.
Luckily, one of the graves that Kevin wanted to see was accessible from the path. This is the grave of Audie Murphy, an actor from the post-WWII era and the most decorated US soldier from WWII.
We had come to Arlington for a reason though. I have an uncle buried there and he was in the same section as Audie Murphy. We had found his section and grave number before going to the cemetery and Kevin and his parents waited while I trudged down the rows looking for his number.
It was hotter than blazes that day and I don’t handle the heat that well. I was glad that the first row I tried was close to his number.
268, 269, 270…
I skipped the big monument and went to the next single because it seemed logical to me at the moment.
287…What?
I couldn’t figure out what I’d missed. The only thing between the two single headstones was that big monument. I walked around the other side.
And there he was.
You see, my uncle, William Henry “Bill” Arnold, was on a plane about to head home. It crashed before they made it out of Vietnam. Wasn’t shot down. Just crashed.
He and 15 other men are right there. Together in death as they had been the last moments of their lives.
He was 29. Never married. No children. My mom was just 5-years-old when it happened, but she remembers being told.
And as far as we know, I am the only person in our family to ever visit his grave. (Not by choice, certainly, but distance makes it difficult.) I can’t help but be a little sad about that.
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Oklahoma girl through-and-through. Writer, aspiring domestic goddess and totalitarian dictator. Taking on the world one carb-induced coma at a time. Founder of GodlyGals, a ministry for women established in 2002. Co-host of Picture Shows & Petticoats. 
