We volunteered this past Saturday morning to help lay Christmas wreaths at the headstones of veterans who lie in rest at the Alexandria National Cemetery in Pineville.
It goes without saying that’s it’s an occasion to show appreciation for our deceased veterans in a way that brings Christmas spirit to all present, including the spirits that hover above that hallowed ground, but it wasn’t without some difficulty.
Janet and I each drew two names, and each name had a letter and number to help designate their whereabouts on the premises. The name I drew, Jerome L. Verzwyvelt, was number B3155. We were pointed to a section “that has some B’s” and ventured in that direction, walking row by row by row, but we couldn’t find our guy. We found names in the 3500s, 3400s, 3300s and eventually the 3100s, but soon the numbers changed drastically.
We had some kind souls trying to help, without avail, until, finally, a Boy Scout pointed far in the distance, where his mom had found the headstone, maybe the length of a football field away.
I did as I was told and called out Jerome’s name as I lay the wreath by his headstone, and then texted a picture from my cell phone to the number given me. I wrote a message that the wreath had just been placed by the grave and a message of thanks for his service. When I didn’t get a response for 48 hours, I tried to call the number: “no longer in service.”
When you try to thank someone for his service and the number is no longer in service, it feels a bit like you’re not of much service.
Nonetheless, we regained an appreciation for The Wreaths Across America annual tradition that involves the Pineville Fire Department, the City of Pineville and the Pineville Police Department. Local law enforcement and first responders escorted the Wreaths Across America to the national cemetery to symbolize the community’s gratitude and respect for those who are buried there.
We also gained a new appreciation for the national cemetery itself, which the federal government established on 8.24 acres (seized from a private citizen) in 1867. That was two years after the end of the Civil War, during which time Alexandria served briefly as the headquarters of the Confederate Department of the Trans-Mississippi. The headquarters moved north to Shreveport in 1863.
According to the memorial marker at the cemetery, it also is home for the remains of members of the all-Black 25th U.S. Infantry from Brownsville, Texas. In 1909, a contractor using local labor exhumed more than 3,000 dead from the Brownsville National Cemetery and transported the remains to Alexandria in five freight-train cars.
Most of the bodies, according to a document from “National Cemeteries, Brownsville, Cemeteries of TX,” were of soldiers who died in the 1885-86 yellow fever epidemic, and they could not, under rigid regulations of that period, be shipped to any other place. Some of them, the local historical marker notes, were also accused in 1906 of killing a barber and wounding a police officer. They denied any involvement, but some 167 enlisted men were discharged “without honor.”
Notable because of my grave site hunt there Saturday, those remains were interred “along the northwest wall and the area designated Section B.”
Here in our midst, history seeps through the rows of white stones and red-ribboned wreaths. Timeless yet treasured are a bugler’s rendition of “Taps,” salutes and moments of silence.
Merry Christmas, veterans.