David Friedli

By the Dashboard Lights

10/11/07

In Honor

We stood in the fading sunlight on a hill just north of a small Nebraska community. There were just a dozen of us..

John had invited me to stop by, “Around eight o’clock or so. When the sun is going down, but not too late.” I arrived early, and stood quietly.

That’s the best thing to do at a cemetery. Be quiet. A cemetery isn’t meant to be a loud, noisy place. From a distance, a cemetery and a park look quite similar. Some final resting places even market themselves that way: Forest Lawn, Memorial Estates, Woodcliff Memorial Park.

John wasn’t far behind. His well-traveled mini van scraped the rutted, sparsely-graveled drive up the hill into the cemetery. Behind him trailed a half-dozen cars.

Three young boys exited John’s van and pulled from the back of the vehicle black cases. From those cases they removed their trumpets.

A few adults joined the group, standing in the warm air of late summer. Others rolled down the windows of their cars and listened.

“I’ve been blowin’ taps at the funerals of veterans for a number of years now,” John said, “ and I’ve been working with some of my young grandsons and nephews here to be able to carry on when I am not able to continue.

“This evening, I want to honor those who I didn’t play for, and I brought these young boys along to carry the tradition forward. We’ll have a prayer, and then we’ll play.”

The Omaha Tribal Cemetery is the resting place of hundreds of tribal members, and in that number are dozens of veterans. Military service honored within the Omaha Tribe. The Ultimate Sacrifice is revered. Two parallel rows of military headstones lay in the shadow of the flags of the United States, the Omaha Tribe, and the State of Nebraska at the Tribal Cemetary.

Dan, a military veteran himself, had positioned flags from every branch of the service and an MIA/POW flag around the military burial sites for the occasion.

Uncle Clifford said a prayer, partly in his native Omaha and partly in English.

And then John and his young relatives raised their horns, faced north and played Taps. After twenty-four solemn notes, there was silence. I choked back emotion and rapidly blinked, hoping others might mistake the tears welling up in my eyes for dust in my contact lenses. I wanted to move, but couldn’t. I felt unworthy. I felt humbled.

Then the musicians turned and faced west, and played again. Then to the south. Then east, toward the horizon where the sun would rise the next day. For the Omaha people, this is the hope for tomorrow: the sun will rise again on their people.

“Go to sleep, peaceful sleep. May the soldier or sailor, God keep. On the land or the deep, safe in sleep.”