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| Source: Tim1965 via Wikimedia Commons |
On the TikTok Social Media App, that dastardly Chinese-owned and widely popular U.S. vehicle for individual expression, there is a content creator who will stop your words and take your breath away.
It is called Arlington Guard. The hashtags are USA, Navy, Honor, Soldier, America, Army, Military, Guard, and FYP. Arlington Guard can be found at this TikTok address: @usa.arlington. Their precision rifle drills are a vivid and superior reminder of the honor and respect due to our fallen soldiers.
Yet not every soldier is buried at Arlington Cemetery. My brother-in-law is buried in a lovely cemetery in Fairfield, Connecticut. A Navy veteran, he was buried with full military honors and a plaque rests below his grave that honors his service.
My father served in the Navy at the conclusion of World War II and spent a few weeks at Bikini Atoll as part of the Atomic Bomb experiments. His fast frigate carried the scientists who studied the two explosions in 1947. And after those test explosions, he either volunteered or was volunteered to accompany those scientists onto the atoll for radiation studies.
My Uncle Gerry served for many years in the U.S. Army. We visited him once in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan where he was based. He met his first wife in Okinawa. He passed away several years ago and is buried in Florida.
My oldest brother served in the U.S. Air Force partially during the Vietnam war, but he was mostly stationed in Maine, repairing early warning radar systems. Thank you for your service, brother.
On August 31st, my wife and I participated in a Memorial Service for her mother Diane, a civilian Naval employee and a Nuclear Physicist who was on the design team for the Tomahawk Cruise missile. That missile was used in the first Gulf war, when we liberated Kuwait from Iraq's invasion. Her work on the cruise missile has changed the nature of modern warfare. She passed away on August 15, 2024, a retiree who worked for the Navy since she graduated from college. There will be no military honors, yet her entire career was spent in the service of our country. We thank her for her service.
Her husband, father to my wife, survives her. He also was a civilian Naval employee, a Nuclear Engineer, also involved in the Tomahawk Cruise missile program in his later years, and prior, in a manner similar to his wife, on other highly classified Department of Defense programs. We thank him for his service.
On my own mother's side of the family, we have documents for the conscription for one ancestor who joined the Ohio Regiment and fought in the Civil War. Another branch of her family dates back to the Daughters of the American Revolution.
I did not serve, having graduated from High School one year after our country's withdrawal from Vietnam. The military was not very popular at that time. I regretted that decision in 1981, at the beginning of the first Gulf War, and again on September 11th and truly every day since. Perhaps because of my regret, I have taken seriously the sacrifice of our fellow citizens, who defend our democracy from all threats, both foreign and domestic.
I am deeply indebted to their efforts to protect our Country and in particular, my freedom. I could not write this opinion in a country ruled by a dictator or under a Theocracy, such as proposed under Project 2025. Thank you for honoring your vow to uphold the constitution of the United States. Thank you for your service.
Military service weaves through nearly every American family tree. For some families it is a direct weave through each generation. For others like mine, the weave is less conspicuous. But it is there nonetheless and each and everyone of us has a responsibility to honor those who came before us, who sacrificed their lives or put themselves in harm's way for the defense of our country.
No matter where a cemetery is located, the grave of a United States soldier is hallowed ground. This especially true at Arlington National Cemetery, where so many of our fallen heroes from all wars rest in peace. There are no exceptions for violating the rules of proper conduct. It is the law. There is no immunity card for Presidential candidates, in fact partisan politics is strictly prohibited on the grounds of the cemetery. Our fallen dead are not props to be used for political gain as shown in the August 26th photo below. That is hallowed ground.
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| Screenshot from Twitter post from the Trump Campaign |
If you do not have even the most basic understanding of honor and respect for our heroes then you are not a patriot and you can never again be the Commander in Chief of the armed forces of these United States. You should be treated as you have treated others who have faithfully served our country- without honor and without respect.
The defense of our democracy weaves through every family in the great country. Pull at that weave and you pull apart the fabric that covers and protects our great nation. That is more than just disrespectful, it's unreproachable, it's disgusting, and it's unacceptable.
And for those who would post a photograph of President Obama laying a wreath at a gravesite at Arlington National cemetery as a response: don't be dumb. The President of the United States laying a wreath at the grave of a fallen soldier on Memorial Day, is an official act of the government, and usually shown on every Weekend local news program. You aren't fooling anyone. And neither is your candidate, Donald Trump. It is time to choose your country over party.
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