A visit to Washington

A different shade of storm blew through my life on this day four years ago. Bitter wind and light snow whipped through our dark clothes on ground far from La Plata County. Helplessly, I held onto my wife Rachael and our then 1-year-old daughter, Skyler. We looked on through bleary eyes as an honor guard discharged shots into the air. A bevy of uniformed men replied with rigid salutes, and a flag-draped casket slowly dropped beneath the ground of Arlington National Cemetery. We then tossed fresh soil into the hole, made our peace and bid my father-in-law a final farewell.

In his day, Lt. Colonel John James was a decorated member of the armed services, but also the strangest of all jarheads – definitely not your rare-meat, high-caliber-ammo Marine. Nope, the guy was a one-time hippie who joined the USMC only after washing out of CU-Boulder. John devoted his life to the Corps, but remained a lover of live Allman Brothers sets, a dedicated marathoner and a man known to dabble in powder skiing and single malt scotch. He was the guy who bought me a congratulatory shot after my engagement and then insisted on playing his fife at my wedding. Months later, John elegantly fumbled the job, ushering my bride out with his practice tune, “God Save the Queen,” (her highness was most pleased). He was a solider who flew dozens of combat helicopter missions in Iraq, but somehow would always shed a tear when a mouse wandered into a trap – a different flavor of Semper Fi.

Only 12 months prior to that windswept day at Arlington, everything went black for John. Total blindness descended on him as he rode his motorcycle home from work at Camp H.M. Smith – headquarters for the U.S. Pacific Command. At that desperate moment, my father-in-law’s sight lapsed into milky black, his Harley Softail continuing down the highway at 70 mph. John did manage the bike to the shoulder, and his eyesight did gradually return. But the real tragedy showed seven days later in a doctor’s diagnosis. John was playing host to an especially aggressive brain tumor, and the prognosis wasn’t good. One year, tops, we were told.

“Gulf War Syndrome” started echoing in medical offices and through second, third and fourth opinions. After a little digging, we realized that John was not alone. Thousands of other veterans of the War in Iraq had also succumbed to, were fighting or losing ground to similar tumors. The signs all pointed to depleted uranium, nerve agents and anthrax vaccinations, lavishly furnished by the U.S. mili

tary upon its own troops. After hearing of John’s condition, the Corps did the unthinkable and turned its back on three decades of service, writing off the illness as bad luck. We all knew – John most of all – that the signs pointed back to American involvement in Iraq.

During the ensuing months of treatment, Rachael, Skyler and I followed John through two surgeries, chemo, experimental drug treatments and unorthodox therapies. We saw the formerly fit man’s flesh sag and slacken and helped guide him after he completely lost his vision. During those trying times, John paid three separate visits to Durango, each for a fleeting glimpse of his beloved Colorado. And then, too soon, we all had our farewells.

Following the casket on foot, “Taps” playing in the distance and the repeated shots of rifles echoing in salute, all seemed like pieces of a twisted, waking dream.

Most haunting of all was the number of other ceremonies that shared Arlington with us on that February day. Dozens of others were on hand, paying their final respects to sons, sisters, fathers and friends – all casualties of a questionable war in a distant land. In an uncomfortable communion, we brushed shoulders and nodded heads, before heading off into that sea of white headstones.

And at the edge of America’s most storied graveyard, sat a sign of times to come. There, marked in black and white atop a large billboard were the words “Arlington National Cemetery – Future Expansion Area.”

And here we sit nearly five years since our illustrious War in Iraq began. The U.S. military is continuing its futile, uphill march in Iraq, our so-called War on Terror has nearly bankrupted much of America (save Halliburton and ExxonMobil), and we all stand by and watch, apparently powerless to act. Off in the distance, the words “freedom” and “democracy” sound with a hollow ring.

And on a distant coastline, not far from where Lt. Col. John W. James will rest for all eternity, that “future expansion area” is no more. Since that fateful invasion on March 20, 2003, nearly 4,000 other flag-draped caskets have returned home from the Near East. What was once freshly turned soil marked by a black-and-white billboard is now planted with hundreds of stark, white headstones.

– Will Sands