For 1 sentinel, a final walk at Arlington's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier
ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) — For the last two years, Army Sgt. 1st Class Andrew Jay has been dutifully guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery.
Rain or shine, snow or sleet, for 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, Jay and the other guards on watch duty serve as both protectors and commemorators of a national tribute to America's unidentified and missing service members.
With Jay's final walk scheduled for June 2, this Memorial Day will hold special significance for him as the cemetery prepares for a string of events honoring those who paid the ultimate price for their country.
'It's meant a lot,' Jay, 38, told The Associated Press. 'I'm going to try to make sure it doesn't define me, but it was definitely a defining moment in my career.'
Jay, who is from Indianapolis, volunteered for the position after serving in the Tennessee-based 101st Airborne Division, which specializes in air assault operations and is known for its record in World War II. He trained for almost 18 months for the guard duty.
'The training is unlike anything I've ever done in my career so far,' he said. 'It's more than the physical aspect of any other Army school you might think of.'
The guards, also known as sentinels for their watchful duty, train even on their off-days, walking on the mat for two hours straight to build up muscular endurance.
But that isn't the only endurance required of the sentinels.
'It's a lot of mental ability,' Jay said. 'You have to be locked in for a nine-minute guard change, but then also your 30-minute walk. So, what you're thinking about kind of varies between soldier to soldier.'
The sentinels spend half an hour walking the mat in the colder months and an hour during warmer months. They perform a dramatic changing of the guard at the grave site that visitors to the Washington area flock to see, marching 21 steps down the mat, turning and facing east for 21 seconds, then north for 21 seconds and then back down the mat for 21 more, repeating the process.
The number refers to the high military honor of the 21-gun salute, which can be heard booming throughout the cemetery and surrounding areas during military funerals on the grounds.
There are currently three unidentified U.S. service members buried in the tomb: one from World War I, one from World War II and one from the Korean War.
With Memorial Day approaching, the cemetery — which is run by the U.S. Army and has 3 to 4 million visitors annually — will hold a number of events to honor fallen service members. Just before Memorial Day weekend, the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment places American flags at the grave sites of more than 260,000 service members buried at the cemetery — an event known as 'Flags In.' On the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, the public is invited to leave flowers at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier for Flowers of Remembrance Day.
'Memorial Day still retains the purpose that it had back in 1868 during that first official observance here in Arlington,' said Allison Finkelstein, the senior historian of Arlington National Cemetery. 'It is the day to remember and honor our war dead.'
There have been 733 tomb guards since 1958. On average, seven to nine tomb guards work every day.
'The honor of guarding them isn't just about the Three Unknowns, it's about everybody that lays here in the cemetery and what they gave in the pursuit of freedom,' Jay said.
___
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Wall Street Journal
an hour ago
- Wall Street Journal
When Gen. Patton Teared Up
Peter Tonguette's commendable essay on 'Patton,' the classic 1970 war film by Franklin J. Schaffner, was most appropriate for Memorial Day weekend ('An Epic of Potent Patriotism,' Masterpiece, May 24). The essay reminded me of another anecdote that the movie failed to capture—namely, when Gen. Patton apologized to troops in Sicily for slapping a soldier suffering from PTSD. As described in Carlo D'Este's authoritative biography, 'Patton: A Genius for War,' when the general, who had 'a rather high, squeaky voice,' tried to apologize to one regiment, the soldiers wouldn't let him. 'He never got past the first word, which was 'Men!' And at that point the whole regiment erupted. It sounded like a football game—a touchdown had been scored because the helmets (steel pots) started flying through the air, coming down all over.' The men cheered 'Georgie, Georgie,' and ignored efforts to restore order, as one witness recounted, leaving Patton in tears. When he departed, 'everybody stood at attention and saluted . . . and General Patton stood up in his command car and saluted, crying.'
CNN
an hour ago
- CNN
Trump's autopen fixation, explained
President Donald Trump first focused on Joe Biden's use of the autopen in March, leaning into the idea that the former president's use of the tool to sign documents showed that he wasn't in charge while in the White House and that his actions were 'null and void.' At the time, conservative executive authority scholar John Yoo wagered to CNN that Trump was 'just having fun at Biden's expense.' Trump on Wednesday sought to take this outside the realm of mere 'fun.' He ordered an investigation of Biden's use of the autopen and its supposed links to Biden's 'cognitive decline.' The move is guaranteed to breathe even more life into a story that has proven to be catnip for conservative media eager to keep the focus on the alleged coverup of Biden's decline. And Trump has certainly shown a talent for seeding baseless conspiracy theories for political gain (see: birtherism and the false notion that the 2020 election was rigged, among them.) But it's difficult to see how this leads anywhere, for a few reasons. The first is that there is nothing evidently wrong or unlawful about using the autopen. In 2005, the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (under Republican President George W. Bush) conducted an extensive review of the legality of a president using the autopen. It found that 'the President need not personally perform the physical act of affixing his signature to a bill to sign it within the meaning of Article I, Section 7.' Trump has most often focused his autopen theory on Biden's pardons. (The idea that these are invalid would ostensibly allow Trump's Justice Department to investigate and charge the people Biden preemptively pardoned.) But there too, established legal advice from past administrations undermines the claim. A 1929 memo from the US solicitor general noted that the Constitution didn't even prescribe a method for issuing pardons. That means they don't necessarily even need to be publicly documented. (You might have heard in recent years about the prospect of 'secret' pardons.) And the memo explicitly says that pardons 'need not have the president's autograph.' The other key point is that many presidents have used this practice in one form or another. Thomas Jefferson bought and used such a machine back when it was first patented in 1803, according to the Shapell Manuscript Foundation. And even Trump himself has acknowledged using the autopen for certain things. Trump said back in March he has used it but 'only for very unimportant papers.' He specifically cited responding to people's letters. But in another case, Trump rather curiously seemed to indicate that he hadn't signed a major proclamation that bore his signature – the one at issue in his attempt to rapidly deport migrants using the Alien Enemies Act. That proclamation is a major issue in litigation that has already reached all the way to the Supreme Court. 'I don't know when it was signed, because I didn't sign it,' Trump said, adding: 'Other people handled it, but (Secretary of State) Marco Rubio has done a great job and he wanted them out and we go along with that.' Given the proclamation bore Trump's signature, that seemed to raise the possibility that the administration might have used the autopen for it. The White House later claimed Trump had in fact signed the proclamation and that he was instead referring to not having signed the original Alien Enemies Act. (But that argument strained credulity, given Trump cited how 'other people handled it' and the fact that the Alien Enemies Act dates to 1798. That means there is no way anyone could ever believe Trump might have signed it. The question Trump responded to also specifically referenced the proclamation, not the 1798 law.) In another way, Trump's Wednesday night memorandum isn't really about the autopen. It's about using that as a shorthand for something else entirely: what the memo calls Biden's 'cognitive decline.' Trump's order isn't just about reviewing whether any autopen signatures used by Biden were lawful; it also cites the idea that people used it as part of an effort to 'unconstitutionally exercise the authorities and responsibilities of the President.' 'I'm sure that he didn't know many of the things – look, he was never for open borders, he was never for transgender for everybody, he was never for men playing in women's sports. All of these things that changed so radically, I don't think he had any idea … what was going on,' Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday. 'Essentially, whoever used the autopen was the president.' This theory – if ever somehow proven – would actually matter. The 2005 Bush Justice Department memo, for instance, made clear that while presidents could outsource the signing of documents, that doesn't mean they could necessarily outsource the decisions to sign the documents. The OLC memo emphasizes that 'we do not question the substantial authority supporting the view that the President must personally decide whether to approve and sign bills.' But however compelling the evidence that Biden administration officials covered up his decline, there remains no evidence that he wasn't actually making decisions to sign things. That's taking things to an entirely different level. Biden's advisers have denied any coordinated effort to conceal from the public his deteriorating condition during the final years of his presidency. And the 2005 DOJ memo suggests it would have to prove more than just that Biden wasn't particularly engaged, but that he didn't make the final decisions. Trump was asked Thursday if he had uncovered 'anything specific' that was signed without Biden's knowledge or by people in his administration who acted illegally. Trump said, 'No.' Biden, for his part, issued some strong statements late Wednesday. 'I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations,' the former president said. 'Any suggestion that I didn't is ridiculous and false.' The former president also called this 'nothing more than a distraction' to obscure Republicans' push for a dicey Trump agenda bill, which features Medicaid cuts in the House-passed version. The Congressional Budget Office estimated Wednesday that this could lead to millions of people losing their health insurance. Indeed, the political utility of the theory underlying Trump's memo is readily apparent. It's wildly popular in conservative media, with Fox News already devoting dozens of stories and extensive coverage to it. That includes this week when other outlets were focused on a decidedly less helpful story for the Trump administration: Elon Musk bashing the president's domestic policy bill. It's also nearly impossible to disprove it. History suggests that arriving at actual proof of Trump's theory is often besides the point for Trump. It's about repetition and seeding doubt. And Wednesday's action is clearly in line with that history.
CNN
an hour ago
- CNN
What do you do when you're the lone Democrat on Trump's FCC? You go on tour
Anna Gomez, soon to be the lone Democrat on the Federal Communications Commission, has been sounding the alarm about President Donald Trump's 'weaponization' of her agency against the press. And now she's taking it on the road. Gomez has embarked on a 'First Amendment Tour' of planned speeches across multiple states, saying Trump has shown a 'pattern of censorship and control' threatening free speech rights. Under Trump-appointed Chairman Brendan Carr, the FCC has conducted what she calls 'sham investigations' against news outlets. Last week, Gomez gave a speech at California State University in Los Angeles — her first tour stop outside Washington, DC. She'll soon make appearances in Kentucky and Illinois, and the tour is expected to last through the end of the year. 'I want to speak out, make sure we get the message out about what is happening and how this is a threat to our democracy,' Gomez told CNN. The FCC's efforts to investigate news outlets — including NPR, PBS, ABC, CBS and NBC — 'is a threat to the freedom of speech and the freedom of the press,' she added, 'and I want to encourage others to join me, to speak out and to push back against this violation of the First Amendment.' Get Reliable Sources newsletter Sign up here to receive Reliable Sources with Brian Stelter in your inbox. Gomez suggested she could be fired for openly criticizing her agency. However, she said she's 'more worried about our democracy and the folks standing up to defend it.' (The FCC is an independent agency, and the president cannot fire a commissioner without just cause. If Trump removed anyone from the panel, it could trigger a legal fight.) 'I will continue to speak out, regardless of what happens, because I think it's important that we bring attention to these actions that are so contrary to our constitutional freedoms,' Gomez told CNN. After this week, Gomez, a 2023 Biden appointee, will be the only Democrat left on the five-seat commission. Her fellow Democrat, Geoffrey Starks, who was appointed by Trump and reappointed by Biden, will step down on Friday. Republican commissioner Nathan Simington, a Trump appointee, will also exit the agency at the end of this week. The departures will leave just two commissioners on the bench: Gomez and Carr, the latter of whom has openly signaled a willingness to pursue media outlets deemed unfavorable by the president. The FCC will be unable to vote on any matters until it fills a vacant seat and fulfills a required three-commissioner quorum. In the meantime, Gomez said she plans to be vocal about her chairman's actions. Since Trump returned to the White House, Carr has reopened probes into NPR and PBS over their sponsorship practices and into CBS over alleged 'news distortion.' He's reinstated complaints against ABC News for its handling of a 2024 presidential debate and opened new probes into NBCUniversal and Disney over their diversity, equity and inclusion policies. Those actions, Gomez said, have been justified by Carr using 'an undefined public interest standard,' which she translated as 'things we don't like to see.' These are 'sham investigations,' Gomez bluntly told CNN. 'They are intended to affect how these broadcasters and companies are doing their business, whether it's how they make their editorial decisions or how they change their fair hiring practices.' Gomez has also used the tour to delve into Trump's lawsuits against media companies — a tactic that has FCC connections, in the case of CBS News. The broadcaster's parent company, Paramount, is seeking the FCC's sign-off on its lucrative merger with Skydance Media. At the same time, Trump is suing CBS, accusing '60 Minutes' of deliberately mis-editing its October interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris to manipulate the election. Even though experts have deemed the lawsuit bogus, CBS is reportedly considering settling the lawsuit. Pressure to settle the case and clear the way for FCC approval has trickled down to the network. CBS News president Wendy McMahon, a '60 Minutes' ally, stepped down last month. 'It's become clear that the company and I do not agree on the path forward,' she wrote in her farewell memo. Weeks before that, longtime '60 Minutes' producer Bill Owens resigned because he felt he could no longer make 'independent decisions based on what was right for 60 Minutes,' as he wrote in a memo to the show's staff. Days later, the newsmagazine's anchor Scott Pelley said that Paramount had started 'to supervise our content in new ways' amid the political pressure, and that Owens felt 'he had lost the independence that honest journalism requires.' 'That, to me, is completely against the public interest,' Gomez said of Owens and McMahon being pushed out, 'because what it says is that they are making news editorial decisions for reasons that have nothing to do with journalistic integrity, but everything to do with the corporate parent's desire to get their transaction done.' While Gomez is using her speeches to sound alarms, she said there are glimmers of hope. The audience at last week's LA show, she said, was thrilled to see press freedom groups pushing back against the administration. However, Gomez said, the overall takeaway from the LA event was just how pervasive the sense of fear for press freedom has become. 'There's a lot of fear about these actions being taken against broadcasters, in particular, and frustration,' Gomez said. 'We heard from a wide variety of people — reporters, broadcasters, professors, public media — and they all had the same message, which is that they are very nervous about the actions that this administration is taking.'
