The Quietest Corner . . .

Visiting Blogger Barley Jim offers the following . . . 

Yesterday while riding (on my bike) by Cambridge Cemetery, a proud African American family approached a nearby grave site where our nation's flag draped a casket, two "redstripes" (Marines are called redstripes for the stripes on their royal blue dress trousers) flanked  the casket in solemn attention while one stood more distant with a silver bugle by his side held in his white gloved hand.  

I dismounted and saluted the family and then departed; perhaps a son just returned from Helmand Province, perhaps a brother from a best forgotten war, perhaps a father from a war near forgotten.  This is all I could do.  This is all any of us can do.  I could not bear to see the careful folding of the "Stars and Stripes" and then its presentation.  I could not bear to hear the oncoming notes echoing over the quietest corner in all of Cambridge.