Arlington National Cemetary - The American Garden of Stone
By Wandering Photo
7 April 2007
Arlington National Cemetery is the American Garden of Stone. This National monument to fallen American heroes is the most hauntingly beautiful site in the Washington D.C. area. Arlington mansion and the 200 acres that surround it were designated officially as a military cemetery on June 15, 1864 by Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton. Since that day the cemetery has continued to expand to meet the ever growing needs of the American armed forces. Most of the tourists who visit the cemetery stay for only a short time and see very little of the cemetery. However, if you walk around Arlington National Cemetery you will see all of American history laid out before you as a silent garden of stone testifying to the extraordinary cost of freedom which we take for granted nearly every moment of our lives. On November, 19th 1863 Abraham Lincoln arrived at Gettysburg Pennsylvania to help dedicate a new cemetery. Portions of Lincoln's speech can be appropriately applied to every cemetery. "It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." Today we are engaged in a great struggle once again to secure our freedom and the freedom of the world from the forces of ignorance, intolerance, hatred, and prejudice. Arlington National Cemetery will continue it's silent vigil as the garden of stone for the fallen of America.
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