The Unknown Soldier

My grandfather was a gentle, kind hearted man. I remember him most for his patience with us, his tag-along grandchildren. Due to failing health his duties on the farm consisted of errand running and occasional baby sitting. Often he would pack a couple of us into the car with him when he drove to Howell or Pinckney to pick up binder twine, chicken feed or whatever else was need on the farm when the rest of the family who were too busy to leave their work. Those rides were pure joy, for he sing along with us, teaching us old songs all the way. Often the trip meant we might be treated to a piece of candy- -just one. I think that may have been where I developed my sweet tooth, as just one was never enough. Grandpa always had a stash of candy somewhere, pink winter green tablets, horehound drops of licorice, but always just one piece.

Another place we tagged along was to the little graveyard up the road from the farm. His father had donated the plot of land to the township for the cemetery and the little white church that stood beside it. It fell to grandpa to keep it neat, well raked and mowed, to dig the occasional grave when a neighbor died and to place flags on the graves of the veterans before Memorial Day each year.

Placing the flags became a yearly ritual for us. Grandpa considered this ceremony to be a serious and sacred obligation. If we wanted to be a part of this ceremony we were expected to walk quietly, single file and solemnly behind him. The ritual ended with a trek down to the far corner of the cemetery where the old flower and broken flower pots were heaped in disarray. There was placed the grave of the unknown soldier.

Each time grandpa affixed the flag the bright new flag to the small tombstone, he became teary.

“Just think,” grandpa would say with tear filled eyes, “This young man’s body was returned to the township after he died for us in the big war, but no one knew who he was. Some mother never knew her son died, and must be wondering what ever happened to him.”

By this time we too would have become sufficiently saddened and the tears flowed.

Grandpa would continue, “We will be his family today and mourn for him.”

So there we’d stand, grandpa and the two or three of us who were with him that day, all soberly remembering the young man who died in the war with no one to mourn for him. Grandpa would say a prayer and then we’d all raise our voices in the mournful hymn, Battle Hymn of the Republic., - - -Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord…

It is a grand memory of our childhood with a sweet old man who may have seemed strange to the world, but to us brought only kindness and a sense of compassion that molded and shaped us for life.

I went back to that lonely grave site this year and wondered why had the unknown soldier’s grave been place there in the far corner of the cemetery?