Today I attended a "rehearsal" for an important ceremony that will be held Thursday at West Point. Attended by the "yearlings" — those cadets moving up from their second to their third year at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point — the "Inspiration to Serve" tour is held every year (except for the past two, due to Covid) as a reflection on, and inspiration by, the lives of those cadets who served and died for their country.
Today, the tactical officers who each lead a company of 25 cadets were able to walk the cemetery and see where the final resting places lie for 28 cadets who were selected to be honored at Thursday's ceremony. Those cadets—some as young as 23—died in Vietnam; Iraq; Afghanistan.
What makes this tour powerful is that family members, friends, teachers, or roommates of the fallen will be standing at their gravesites, telling the groups who visit the site all about their loved one and the life they led before they fell to enemy fire. During the last tour, in 2019, the father of one of the fallen stood at his son's grave and spilled out his story until he, too, collapsed...felled by a stroke atop his son's resting place.
The tour will begin at the old Cadet Chapel, which was moved to the cemetery in the early 1900s. On the walls of the chapel are plaques commemorating Revolutionary War heroes, and those soldiers who died in the Mexican and Indian wars of the 1800s.
Way up in a corner of the chapel, almost hidden, is a plaque with its name scraped away. To whom did it belong, before the accolade was unceremoniously scrubbed?
Why, Benedict Arnold, of course.
The rest of the chapel is beyond stunning. The mural at the top of my post was painted by Robert W. Weir, famous for his depiction of the Embarkation of the Pilgrims on the Capitol Rotunda in Washington, D.C. He was a drafting instructor at West Point when he painted that mural.
The pipe organ is still there, too.
Everything about West Point is bigger than life, said Dr. Peter Kilner, who will be guiding the ceremony on Thursday and who was gracious enough to lead me and the Association of Graduates' creative director on a tour of the cemetery today.
Indeed, a walk among the gravestones at the meticulously well-kept cemetery narrows your perspective on what's important. Here, you'll walk among giants, heroes of historic wars for our freedom.
Gen. Westmoreland? He's buried here. I passed by Gen. Schwarzkopf's grave, and that of his father. Custer's here, too—I'm not entertaining arguments over whether he was a hero, or not.
Most gravestones are small, white granite monoliths. Some (but few) are garishly grandiose, while most others are beautiful in their artistry.
With the Hudson Highlands as a backdrop, they are a walk through our country's history. Begun in 1817, graves are still being filled here today. But seriously, name a historical wartime figure, and there's a chance he's buried here. Perhaps the most sentimental gravestones, however, are those of the cadets who led legacies while they lived, like one cadet whose stone is engraved with the nickname he earned on the football field, not the battlefield: Mr. Outside.
I didn't take many pictures today. It just didn't feel right to do so. But when I did, I had my reasons. Like this shot of the tomb of Major Gen. John Buford. The officers and men of his command contributed to pay for this work of art.
My Marty still talks about his Boy Scout trip to Gettysburg, and what he felt standing on the grounds at Pickett's Charge. Today I stood at the grave of Alonzo Cushing, who—in Kilner's words—began the fall of the Confederacy right there on that fateful day.
How anyone could walk these grounds and not be moved is beyond me. Like I said, you're standing among giants. And on Thursday, this grass will be walked by young cadets—younger than my Marty, younger than my Ellen, not much older than my Tommy—who will walk in those giants' footsteps and use this experience to inform one of the most important decisions of their lives: Whether to continue on this time-honored path, risking their very lives in the process, or....not.
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