King College > Travel Opportunities > Experience D.C.

Entering as a tourist… Leaving as an American Citizen

A few friends and I sought to spend an hour of free time seeing as much of the Washington area as we possibly could during our freshman retreat to the city as rain threatened the hazy and humid Saturday afternoon. When we left the congestion of the downtown to visit Arlington National Cemetery, I entered as a tourist merely wanting to see the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the massive statue of the Iwo Jima flag raising, but I left as an American citizen, renewed with a deeper appreciation of why the United States is such a great nation.

In the same way that Memorial Day is viewed as little more than a long weekend at the start of vacation season, Arlington National Cemetery, to me, was previously nothing more than another one of the attractions of Washington, DC. The words “our nation’s most sacred shrine” on the sign at the entrance seemed to catch me off guard as I entered Arlington for the first time. My initial reaction was that a place must be very special to be enshrined by our secular U.S. government. Those words perfectly set the stage for what Arlington Cemetery became in my mind.

The clock in the visitor’s center read 5:25 when we arrived. Five minutes were left until the famed changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. My friends and I decided right away to rush as quickly as we could to see the occasion for ourselves.  I realized what Arlington Cemetery is all about during this brisk walk. The green hills are not covered by the graves of a few famous politicians or men whose lives were later made into movies; Arlington National Cemetery is a shrine to thousands of ordinary Americans who rose to an occasion where liberty was threatened and gave everything they had to keep their country free. I saw in those perfect rows that my freedom was not bought by the excellence of a few gifted leaders but by the blood and toil of entire generations.

Very few people will ever know most of the names engraved on the plain white tombstones that cover the ground across the Potomac.  Nobody knows the names of those souls who gave up their very identities for our country and are forever guarded at the Tomb of the Unknowns. I could only worship the omniscient One I serve as I read their inscription: “Here lies in honor an American soldier known but to God.” Even though most graves are not given fanfare day after day, all of the men are remembered perfectly because their legacy is not in a name, but in the freedom that allows 280 million Americans to live our lives to the fullest each and every day.

Despite the fact that the view of Washington from the high ground was less than spectacular because of the weather, my true purpose for climbing the hills of Arlington was served. I was reminded on a September day that the great feats in life are seldom accomplished by one or two people taking on mythical superhero status. George Washington, Davy Crockett, and George S. Patton did not win freedom for our nation by themselves. My grandfather did his part for what America is today by driving a Jeep across the treacherous roads of France during World War II. My ancestors who were among the first to till the rich soil of Iowa played a role as well. So did my great- grand parents who raised a family, kept a working home, and held down jobs at the textile mill in North Carolina. If I am to accomplish greatness in my own life, I don’t need to see greatness but merely to do my part and rely on others to do theirs. Only in a country’s collective strength and will, along with unwavering faith God, is history truly made.