Correspondent of the Day..

[bigrun]

Who wouldn't agree with this..should be in their job description..if they have one..



Congress should spend some time at Arlington

Editor, Times-Dispatch:

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 in the 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 salute 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, smartphone 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.

Every week, our leaders should watch the caissons. Let them hear the rifles crack and then let each one decide whether to put political party or personal ambition ahead of the country's real needs. And then let him cross the river and go back to work.

[Riot]

Well written. Thanks for that. I've heard some say that the only Congresspeople allowed to vote on sending our kids to war should have been there themselves at one time. They have a point.