Bringing a hero home

George Will:

"The curtains pull away. They come to the door. And they know. They always know."

- Maj. Steve Beck, U.S. Marine Corps

Sometimes Beck would linger in his vehicle in front of an American home, like that of the parents of Lance Cpl. Kyle Burns in Laramie, Wyo. Beck knew that, as Jim Sheeler writes, every second he waited "was one more tick of his wristwatch that, for the family inside the house, everything remained the same."

Beck - now Lt. Col. Beck - was a CACO, a casualty assistance calls officer whose duty was to inform a spouse or parents that their Marine had been killed.

He is the scarlet thread - like the stripes on Marines' dress-blue trousers, symbolizing shed blood - that connects the heart-rending stories in Sheeler's "Final Salute: A Story of Unfinished Lives." The book, which proves that the phrase "literary journalism" is not an oxymoron, expands the meticulous and marvelously modulated reporting he did for the Rocky Mountain News, and for which he received a Pulitzer Prize. His subject is how America honors fallen warriors.

More precisely, it is about how the military honors them. The nation, as Marine Sgt. Damon Cecil says, "has changed the channel." Still, Sheeler sees civilians getting glimpses of those who have sacrificed everything. The glimpses come as the fallen are escorted home. When an airline passenger, noting an escort's uniform, asked if the sergeant was going to or coming from the war, he repeated words the military had told him to say: "I'm escorting a fallen Marine home to his family from the situation in Iraq."

The situation.

Sheeler: "When the plane landed in Nevada, the sergeant was allowed to disembark alone. Outside, a procession walked toward the cargo hold. The airline passengers pressed their faces against the windows.

"From their seats in the plane they saw a hearse and a Marine extending a white-gloved hand into a limousine. In the plane's cargo hold, Marines readied the flag-draped casket and placed it on the luggage conveyor belt.

"Inside the plane, the passengers couldn't hear the screams."

...

When the Army CACOs came to the Arlington, Va., door of Sarah Walton, my assistant, she was not there. She rarely forgot the rule that a spouse of a soldier in a combat zone is supposed to inform the Army when he or she will be away from home. This time Sarah forgot, so it took the Army awhile to locate her at her in parents' home in Richmond.

Her husband, Lt. Col Jim Walton, West Point class of 1989, was killed in Afghanistan on June 21. This week he will be back in Arlington, among the remains of the more than 300,000 men and women who rest in the more than 600 acres where it is always Memorial Day. This is written in homage to him, and to Sarah, full sharer of his sacrifices.

My condolences go out to Sarah Walton and others who have gotten news they never wanted.

I have posted on Sheeler's book before. The photos at the link are stunning and very moving. The one that is included in that post captures the scene described in Will's piece about the passengers pressing their face to the windows but not hearing the screams. Please look at it again.

Sheeler was a friend of my son in high school in Houston. He is a fine writer who wrote a story about one of the toughest jobs an officer has.