ARLINGTON
From the Book “America! America? Copyright 2003, 2005.
I had walked through Washington, D.C. I had seen the Mall, had taken pictures of the Capitol and the White House. I had looked at the multitude of monuments: statesmen and generals of marble and bronze. They appeared proud and invincible, with a quiet majestic stance – in some cases on proud and grand horses. Obviously they had done well for their country.
Then I walked across a bridge at the Potomac River and came to Arlington and the National Cemetery. What a contrast to the city of Washington! Instead of columns and monuments, instead of people walking on the streets, there were neat rows of little crosses and stars of David: the graves of all those people who had given their precious lives – fighting wars against other people in other places. None of them, on either side of the many battles, had wanted to die. But die they did.
As a child I had lived through the horrors of war. It had been a war started by a self-centered dictator who had wanted to control the world. His purpose, his intent and his methods were doomed. Millions of people who wanted to live had died. And instead of marble or bronze monuments to him, people learned to despise his memory. His war had generated death and disaster. I thought about it: Why do we have wars?
As I was seeing the National Cemetery in Arlington I thought of all the other military graveyards around the world – in France, in Germany in Italy and in so many other places. I thought of all the millions of soldiers who had volunteered or had been forced to end their lives for causes they might have or might not have embraced. What a contrast between the monuments for generals and the little crosses for the soldiers! Yet, the generals and the soldiers had fought together. They had won or lost their battles together. Neither could have done it without the other. Certainly the generals could not have won their battles without the soldiers.
From my high school courses in ancient and recent history I remembered the names of many generals. History had inscribed their memory into the “Annals of Forever” whenever they had won their battles. There were many names in history: from Hannibal and Alexander in the ancient past to Rommel, Montgomery and Eisenhower in the recent World War. To me it seemed unjust that only the generals received all the monumental credit.
It seemed unfair that the Roman emperor Gaius Julius Caesar: would write in his book “De Bello Gallico:” Veni, vidi, vici: I came, I saw, I won. There was no emphasis on all the soldiers that fought to win a battle which gained Roman control over Gallia (today’s France). I found it difficult to accept his and other general’s self-oriented attitude – especially in the view of many thousands of graves – here in Arlington and even more in so many places around the world.
What about the wasted lives of so many who would never realize their own plans for the future? That evening I wrote:
I came, I saw, I won! What a lie!
Since then many years have been going by
And still the generals win the fight.
Their public statues are shining bright. –
Yet all the honor a soldier will save
Will be a cross – on a tiny grave.
Six feet long, and two feet wide,
Two feet and two feet – side by side.
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