And They Will Be a Long Time Coming Home: Soldiers Far Away

(This is Not a paean to the South and "The Lost Cause")

I live in Florence, SC, and there is a federal cemetery here. It does not have the awesome grandeur of Arlinton. It has a quiet dignity that it holds for those who rest there. I'm not sure they do rest. It was started during the Civil War. There was a prison camp nearby, and the Union soldiers who died were buried there. After the war the land was consecrated and made officially into a federal site that is still in use today. The government apparently thought that the land was not already consecrated by those who are buried in it. I visit the cemetery in the fall when it is cool enough to take my time. I go at dusk because it seems to be more peaceful then.

The first thing you notice will be a grass-covered field with long mounds side by side. When the wind blows, it looks like a sea of rolling green waves. Under each mound is the place where a trench was dug. So many soldiers died that they were just thrown into the them and covered up. There is a marker at the end of each trench that tells how many men are buried there. It is simple, beautiful, and horrible.

Beside the field and under some trees are individual graves. The officers are buried there. There is a name, a date, and the state where they were from listed on each marker. The officers have the privilege of a personal stone. They are from everywhere - Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and more. It is a sobering way to remember geography. I wonder about them. They are buried much further from home than soldiers from Viet Nam and Iraq. Sometimes I think I feel them there, bound together as a band of brothers. They won't leave their comrades. I wonder how to set them free. Is there a way?

When I leave this area I go over to the section that is still in use. I see the new graves for those who have left us in the last few years. Some of them are veterans who have died from old age. Some of them are the young who died in Iraq. War is not romantic. It is unbearably sad.

It's enough to just remember and honor them.