Korean War Veterans Association

     On a hot March afternoon, I stood among the mourners on a grassy hillside in Arlington National Cemetery as 23 year old Marine Sgt. William Stacey was laid to rest. Stacey's procession had walked slowly behind his flag-draped caisson while the Marine Corps band played and the honor guard kept perfect formation inthe March sun.

     At his graveside his parents and others wept when the flags were presented. Marines stood rigid in dignified mourning, and we all kept a respectful silence as the bugler sounded "Taps". A rifle aslute cracked the stillness.

     As I paid my own quiet respects to this son of old friends, I gazed over Arlington's sea of headstones, and across the Potomac to the white marble of our nation's capital. The Capitol dome shone in the distance, bringing to mind the daily litany of political news that in recent years has reported little in the face of real national crises but partisan intrigue and obfuscation.

     Soon after the mourners retired and Stacey's family was to say their final, private goodbyes, I heard another band playing nearby, and I saw another caisson carrying another young person to another grave. I heard another seven rifles crack the stillness with three sharp volleys. And the day was still young.

     It would be well if every member of Congress and the president were required to spend one uninterrupted hour each week in Arlington National Cemetery, smartphones off, alone among the stones. The fallen resting there mutely remind us of just how very seriously each of them took the nation's well-being.