On a lonely bluff located near a grove
of trees is a sight that touches one’s heart and leaves it bleeding. A cemetery
is a place of remembrance and a final resting place for those we have loved, respected,
and have lost. This particular one reminds us all of the pains of war. As a Civil
War Cemetery, it has graves of soldiers who died while fighting. Yet, the vast
majority of men buried here have only UNKNOWN on their headstone.
The sheer heartache of seeing these markers
is a cruel reminder of the misery that their families suffered when losing a
son on the battlefields. Their relatives never knew what happened to them. Where
they were buried or how exactly they died.
Can you image sending your son off to
fight and never having him come home? His wife not being able to mourn over his
grave. His kids having to responses to questions as to where their father might
be with, “He went off to fight and never returned. We don’t know what happened
to him.”
The pain of not knowing is a crushing
burden to have to deal with. This is why war of any kind is so crushing for us.
No matter which side a person might fight in a conflict. Their family walks
with them onto the battlefield, praying that no matter whether they are
victorious or not they will return home.
This is one of the reason people from
the south want to hold onto their civil war monuments. Not as a symbol of oppression
of a race but as a remembrance of family and friends that were lost. The memorials
show the spirit to pay the ultimate price for a cause. Right or wrong, these
men’s deaths spread pain across the country that is still being felt when you
glance at a soldier’s gravestone that reads. UNKNOWN.
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