section7mfu | "In memory of the fallen..." (Reply)

Memorial Day, a day to remember and honor the dead, the war heroes who sacrificed their lives to preserve freedom around the world.

Napoleon made his nearly annual trek to Arlington National Cemetery to visit the grave of his war buddy and best friend, ‘Scotty’ Bob McKenna, with whom he served during the Korean War. This time his partner the Russian, Kuryakin, took the drive with him.

The blond left Napoleon to his privacy to visit the grave of his old friend and to place a wreath of flowers in front of the plain white tombstone.

Illya wandered past row upon row of dead, looking at their names and the dates they died. Veterans of so many different wars all neatly put to rest in a beautiful spot that felt so peaceful... a fitting tribute.

Impressed by the simplicity of the place, the uniformity and the fact that one war was not placed in significance over another; Illya thought about his own country that had nothing really like it.

There were other monuments scattered about for those of importance, as well as an amphitheatre with it’s trellis’ covered in roses, and gently trickling fountains. It was an amazingly serene setting for so many who had met their end so violently.

He spotted small tokens left by so many graves, all marked by small American flags that fluttered in the breeze. Toys, letters, photographs and messages of love were everywhere. Signs that some were not forgotten, yet he noted there were few visitors.

There was an anti-war sentiment blanketing this country, but he saw no reason why that belief should dismiss the dead.

Illya looked up from one of the headstones, hearing the silence broken by the rhythmic clip-clopping of hooves. He watched as seven graceful, yet powerful horses passed by along the road. Astride four of them were uniformed soldiers mounted straight and tall.

The magnificent white horses seemed to sense the solemnity of their task, drawing a flag-draped casket upon a black casson along the sunlit lane to its place of rest among the fallen.

So many words came to the Russians mind, among them, dignity and sadness...

In Soviet Union, there existed the Kremlin Wall Necropolis in Moscow, to him a cold place... where burials had begun back in 1917, with pro-Bolshevik victims of the October Revolution, and there they were buried in mass graves on Red Square.

After the last mass burial made in 1921, funerals on Krasnaya ploshchad' were usually conducted as state ceremonies and reserved as the last honor only for the notable politicians, military leaders, cosmonauts and scientists.

Burials in the ground were eventually halted, with funerals rituals now conducted as interment of cremated ash in the Kremlin wall itself. Actual burials in the ground only resumed again with the great Mikhail Kalinins funeral in 1946.

Still it was reserved for Soviet heroes, and not the everyday man, the soldiers fought and died in the field.

There were of course the mass graves such as Katyn, but they were Stalinist killing fields; nothing like this Arlington...a place to bury and honor the fallen.

Illya quietly walked up behind Napoleon, his eyes filled with marvel at such respect for the ‘masses,’ as it did not happen like this in his own country. He was about to say something when the American turned to him.

“Hey, tovarisch...you and Scotty Bob, my two best friends by my side at last. I wish you could have known him,” he sighed. “I think you would have liked each other. You’re both my brothers you know.”

“Thank you, lmy friend,” Illya bowed his head slightly,” I am honored to be in such great company.”

* ref Brothers Old and New http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7316278/1/Brothers-Old-and-New

Seoul Survivors http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7371168/1/Seoul-Survivors

and In Memoriam http://section7mfu.livejournal.com/321990.htm