At the beginning of Arlington: Call to Honor, the mother of an Army private killed in Iraq is seen making a pilgrimage to her son's graveside.
Teresa Arciola's son Michael is gone, but his memory survives in a place the narrator calls “perhaps the most hallowed ground in America."
For nearly two centuries, America's war dead and others who wore our nation's uniform have been buried in a pastoral setting in Virginia.
For Memorial Day, the Smithsonian Channel offers a documentary on the history of Arlington National Cemetery, a story that is commonly told this time of year but one that is so rich in historic and cultural significance it never gets stale.
The approach is straightforward and respectful, from the cemetery's use as a kind of potter's field during the Civil War to the final resting place for a slain president and military victims of Sept. 11.
Two weeks before his assassination, President Kennedy visited Arlington and noted that a certain hillside would be a good place to spend eternity. His grave and the eternal flame over it are now on that site.
With the World War II generation dying off, and the casualties from Iraq and Afghanistan mounting, the 612-acre cemetery is busier than ever, the narrator says. An average of 27 burials take place daily, each planned to the tiniest ceremonial detail.
Call to Honor goes behind the scenes to show the meticulous care given to each burial by the Old Guard, a special Army unit assigned to the cemetery. Forty-nine soldiers and 58 horses are assigned to the “caisson platoon" that carries each flag-draped casket to its burial site.
Call to Honor does not gloss over the biggest blot on the cemetery's history: the refusal of the military to admit that the “unknown" from the Vietnam War was not totally unknown. Media pressure forced a reexamination, and the remains of an Air Force pilot were returned to his family for reburial near their home.
The emotional high point of Call to Honor is the visit to Section 60, where those killed in Iraq and Afghanistan are buried. Families of the dead share a bond of grief and a profound understanding of a simple truth.
“You go to war, somebody is going to die," says Teresa Arciola.
