May Their Memories Be Eternal

I visit cemeteries often. About once a month I go and pray for my parents. Usually, I look for the graves of Orthodox Christians and pray the Trisagion for them. There aren't many Orthodox in the cemeteries I visit. But there are always war dead. I always pray for them, too. The things they did and saw and had to do were horrible. God, be merciful to them.



I think we all know this picture. At each changing of the guard the commander of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknowns salutes his fallen comrades from the two World Wars and the Korean War. (The crypt that once housed the body from the Vietnam war is now vacant.)

In Philadelphia is a less famous but no less important Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. In the stone below are carved these words: "Beneath this stone rests a soldier of Washington's army who died to give you liberty."