A Memorial Day Reflection
I was at a coffee shop the other day, about to drop a handful of coins from the bottom of my purse into the tip jar, when one of the pennies caught my eye.
It looked different.
Was it an old wheat penny like the one I wrote about a couple of months ago?
No. This one was different. Foreign, maybe?
I dumped the other coins in the jar and stepped away from the counter to take a closer look.
It was a 1907 Indian Head penny. Lady Liberty “crowned” with a Native American headdress on the front, a laurel wreath surrounding “ONE CENT” on the back.
The image was striking.
How many hands had it passed through in 119 years? How many eyes never looked twice, assumed it was an ordinary penny, and let it go?
It was like a little treasure from a time gone by, and so of course I held onto it. And I guess it was still in the back of my mind a couple of days later when Memorial Day weekend arrived and I decided to drive over to Punchbowl Cemetery.
The National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, as it’s formally named, sits inside an extinct volcanic crater above Honolulu. I hadn’t been there in years — but with the 250th birthday of the United States approaching, I wanted to go this year.
Our world is at war even now, in new ways and new places, with no clear-cut way through.
As I entered the cemetery, hundreds of small flags dotted the graves that rest beneath the central lawn leading up to the monument. It’s a sight to behold.
I got out of my truck and started walking. Thanking each veteran by name, considering their age when they died, where they were from, which phase of the war had taken them.
December 7, 1941.
The day that would live in infamy.
And then all of a sudden I passed it.
Just that word, carved into the stone.
UNKNOWN.
No name. No birthplace. No birthday. No surviving account of where or how they died.
And that darned Indian Head penny flashed in my mind again. A small remnant from a world long gone from living memory.
And now I just wanted to pay my respect to all of these UNKNOWNS. The ones without a face.
I think it was noticing that penny — the one so many others might have dropped in the jar without a second glance — that sent me searching through the cemetery.
Searching for other fallen service members whose remains were never identified.
Someone had left wildflowers on one of them. Yellow ones, small and bright.
I felt a sadness seeing the tree roots beginning to spread around the marker, as though even this small memorial to the unknown might someday disappear.
I ventured on into another court within the cemetery.
There, beneath two large flags, was a black granite plaque dedicated by “The Chosin Few Korea-1950” — veterans honoring their unnamed brothers from the Korean War. The American flag reflected across the polished surface.
And engraved into the stone, a poem by R.C. Holtzer that read in part:
They rest here together nameless,
regardless of faith or race.
Known only to God;
“yet” we veterans know their face.
Known only to God.
I let it sink in and prayed:
Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord,
and let perpetual light shine upon them.
May they rest in peace. Amen.
Walking back toward my truck, Psalm 139 popped into my head like it often does. But these lines spoke a little louder than usual:
In your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.
Every one of them.
Yes, every one of these brave souls who gave their lives in the name of freedom. Especially these whose stories have been lost to history.
Before the first day. Before the name that would later be lost. Before the stone that marks the soul resting beneath it:
UNKNOWN.
Written down.
The stone says UNKNOWN.
His book says otherwise.
And when all the speeches have been made and all the wreaths that were laid have withered, and when the memorial flags are removed, and life rolls on:
It will still be true.
There is a Kingdom where even the unknown remain fully known.
And so I walked away comforted by the Truth:
We are all KNOWN to God.
