Taking
the Day Personally
Families
of Those Who Served Find Solace in Honoring Sacrifice
Tuesday,
May 28, 2002
Even
in the midst of thousands of tourists and VIP vans and cannon fire and
bands, Arlington National
Cemetery
on Memorial Day can be an intensely private place.
It's
a place where three siblings can hold hands by their brother's grave and,
oblivious to the throngs
and
traffic, say a prayer. It's a place where a grown woman can sit beside
her father's granite
tombstone
and hear again in her mind the bagpiper who helped bid the World War II
veteran
goodbye.
And
it was where Evelyn Foster and Pam Cain yesterday arranged a red and blue
bouquet at the
small
white marker of Oscar Mauterer, an Air Force
colonel who disappeared while flying over Laos
more
than 36 years ago at age 41. On the sweep of a hill at the cemetery's western
edge, his wife and
daughter
still were waiting for his remains to come home.
"He's
very much a part of our lives," Cain said. She was 12 when her father vanished,
her brother two
years
younger. She continues to wear the silver MIA bracelet bearing the date
he was shot down:
2-15-66.
"We've gone on, had families . . . " Cain's voice slowed momentarily. "But it still comes back to you."
As
always, miniature U.S. flags greeted visitors to Arlington yesterday, one
at each of the cemetery's
more
than 272,000 graves. "And there's a story behind each one," Foster said.
This
first Memorial Day since Sept. 11 attracted bigger crowds than usual. Many
area residents and
visitors
chose to mark the day publicly, turning out for ceremonies at Arlington
and at the Vietnam
Veterans
Memorial or for the 58th annual parade in Rockville, where Navy Capt. Jon
Feerick, one of
the
first doctors to help the injured at the Pentagon, served as grand marshal.
But
for many families and friends with a direct connection to the holiday,
the point was not public
display
but personal reminiscence.
In
countless tiny moments, that is what they honored. Many eschewed the official
wreath-laying at the
Tomb
of the Unknowns and steered clear of the amphitheater where 5,000 others
heard Deputy
Defense
Secretary Paul Wolfowitz warn that this country faces "another hour of
great testing" as it
fights
terrorism at home and abroad.
Instead,
they brought flowers, memories and, often, a hope that the country might
reflect more deeply
now
on sacrifice.
"The
picnics, that's not what it is," Sarah Inglis-Baldy said as her children
laid red carnations at the
symbolic
gravestone of their uncle, Patrick Kelley Inglis. The Naval Academy graduate,
a lieutenant
junior
grade, was lost in the Mediterranean in 1983. He was 25.
The
Ellicott City family's ritual was punctuated by 3-year-old Mary Margaret's
prayer thanking Jesus
for
another day and 11-year-old Caroline's discovery of a four-leaf clover.
"Go put it up there," her
mother
suggested. "He'd be proud."
She
wants their visits to make an impression on her five daughters and son,
who is named for his
uncle.
"This is our link to him, the meaning of our loss."
At
the Vietnam memorial, the ceremonies were overwhelmingly personal -- and
powerful -- for
relatives
of three Army veterans whose names were formally added to the Wall.
Janet
T. King choked up as she recalled her brother, Sgt. Richard E. Toney of
Bogalusa, La., who
died
of kidney failure less than three years after being shot while doling out
supplies from the back of
a
Jeep.
King
said her brother's incapacitation and death at 23 devastated their parents.
Both were dead
within
four years. "This experience was like the end of our family," she said.
"It just ripped our family
up."
With
help from another Vietnam veteran, King submitted her brother's name to
be inscribed after
learning
that he was eligible because his death resulted directly from combat injuries.
His is the newest
etching
on Panel 40 East. "It was difficult, very difficult," she said, "but I
think he would be proud."
A 1968
firefight left Pfc. Paul P. Zylko of Passaic, N.J., without a right eye,
right arm or left thumb,
but
the veteran returned home to raise a family and build a career working
with people with cerebral
palsy.
He was 51 when he died in 1999 of the hepatitis C he contracted from a
blood transfusion
after
his injuries. His widow, Kathy Zylko, looked hard at his name yesterday,
"really accepting that
he's
dead."
And
nearby, Sandra L. Harvey recalled her brother, Pfc. William E. Johnson
Sr. of Cleveland, who
died
in 1998, 29 years after he was critically injured by friendly fire. His
wounds left the
mild-mannered
Johnson, drafted at 19, mentally disabled. For years, he suffered seizures.
"The
spirit he had, the ambition, the dreams -- all of that died the day he
was shot," said Harvey, who
had
to produce extensive medical documentation before his name could be added
to the Wall.
Yesterday,
she represented all three families, reciting the three names as their sacrifice
was formally
honored.
The memorial will mark the 20th anniversary of its dedication in November.
Its black granite
panels
now contain 58,229 names.
At
Arlington, where the names are written one headstone at a time, the stories
are told the same way
--
by those who remain and return.
Nineteen-year-old
Beau Timberlake of Tallahassee sat by himself for an hour, hugging his
knees and
focusing
intently on the gravestone that reads "Ronald Neil Timberlake, US Army
Maj."
His
father survived two tours as a helicopter pilot in Vietnam, receiving the
Silver Star and Purple
Heart
and too many other honors to be listed on a modest block of marble.
He
was proud of them but never boasted, his son said. There were many stories
behind his
accomplishments
-- "many he would never tell," Beau added.
Then,
barely three years ago, Timberlake was killed in a traffic accident outside
Houston. This was
Beau's
first visit since the funeral.
"I
had wanted to come up here for a long time," he said. "This was the best
Memorial Day weekend
I've
ever had."
Posted: 24 July 2002