American Gam

“…We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.” ~ Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address

This morning I dropped off Treva at the airport down in Rapid City. She’s going to California for a few weeks of R&R. She has two doctor visits at the beginning and at the end of that time period. In between, instead of wasting money on a rental car and hotels or flying back and forth she chose the more affordable, and more enjoyable, option of taking an ocean cruise. She will be sleeping on the floating hotel, the Queen Mary II for one night in Long Beach before getting on a cruise ship to sail down to Ensenada and then out to Catalina Island.

Since I was already down there amongst the flatlanders in Rapid City, after dropping Treva off at the airport, I decided to take a drive on Route 90 West to visit the Black Hills National Cemetery in Sturgis. This is just one of a half dozen national cemeteries distributed throughout the United States. Since its inception in 1948 over 29,000 soldiers have been interred here. A couple of notable soldiers buried here are two of the eleven Navajo code talkers who used their native language to relay secret codes that the Japanese military was unable to translate and thereby help to defeat the enemy.

As you might expect, this tract of land is a very solemn place. Peaceful, reverent, and well-manicured. 🇺🇸

We are presently engulfed in a serious heatwave here. It was 103° at the time I took these pictures from my air-conditioned truck! 🥵

But those three soldiers, doing their duty as Honor Guards, standing watch over another soldier’s funeral in full-dress uniforms, with rifles at their side, weren’t flinching in that suffocating heat. For them it was a sacred honor to be there no what Mother Nature threw at them. 🇺🇸

I hope you can get a sense of the austere atmosphere and the weighty burden of this somber place from these pictures.

The gam continues…