A walk in Arlington

Remembering comes easy to Nebraskans.

We remember as we watch our kids on the same playgrounds and ballfields where we once played. We remember long-ago picnics and absent faces when a summer holiday draws us back to a park we loved as children. We remember especially on Memorial Day, when we visit a church cemetery off a gravel road and stand among the graves of generations of relatives, the past and future running through us in an unbroken line.

But how can we remember who we are as Americans?

Earlier this month I walked through Arlington National Cemetery with former U.S. Sen. Jim Webb. We came together over a shared interest in books and military service. For me, Webb’s life encompasses the ideals of what it means to be an American: Marine and wartime hero; peacetime public servant and officeholder under both political parties; and prolific and successful writer, of novels, nonfiction works and Hollywood screenplays. And, Webb has Nebraska roots: He graduated from Bellevue High in Sarpy County, while his father was stationed at Offutt Air Force Base.

I never yearned to visit Arlington. As a child, there had been an uncomfortable trip to a national cemetery on Long Island, watching my father page through a thick directory to locate the grave of my grandfather, who served on a destroyer in the Pacific during World War II. When I moved east to attend the Naval Academy, I saw little more than white markings on a green lawn as I sped to and from Washington, D.C.

National cemeteries invoked the grandeur and vastness of America, not the feeling of home.

On the occasion of my first visit, Webb, like the Ghost of Christmas Past, showed me the stories of Arlington. There was the father who long ago might have spread a blanket on the ground to protect his knees as he planted seedlings around the grave of his 19-year-old son, one of some 58,000 lost in the Vietnam War. Those plants now envelop his son’s headstone.

At another marker, we placed two burning cigarettes in remembrance of the heroic young squad leader who served under Webb’s command in Vietnam. Our final stop was at the grave of Webb’s father, James Henry Webb, who served in World War II, Korea and Vietnam before dying from illness at age 79.

Arlington’s 639 acres comprise the graves of some 400,000 souls – veterans and their families – a number equal to the population of an entire city. Less than four miles from the Capitol, but a world apart. Each headstone a representation of the veteran buried there: steadfast and uniform; young or old; some scarred and seasoned, others eternally young, charged with the passion of their final act. War destroyed many of the bodies of these men and women, but their idealism — in America, in their friends — remains undefeated. Arlington brings together those who, regardless of origin, race or religion, shared a common belief in country that transcends time and circumstance.

I’m glad I finally walked in Arlington. Someday, I might take my children. Until that day, we’ll stay close to home. We’ll find our way to a little cemetery that overlooks the Missouri River. It has iron gates and a chain-link fence. The ground is flat, but the blue sky rolls out in waves overhead. The names have become familiar over the years. The story of my mother’s ancestors is carved into the monuments, each as distinctive as the person buried beneath the soil they spent their lives working.