The tomb guard badge, which is depicted on our logo and in this case here, this is the second least awarded badge in the United States military with the exception of the astronaut a astronaut badge. Today, we are giving badge number 634 to a young man and now in the brotherhood of fellowship of tomb guards. We have a society, we are 501c3 organization and part of the bylaws is is we do Community Outreach to educate the public about the tomb. I find that your generation, this, sort of a sweeping generation here, that your generation knows about the tomb. I talk to School Groups, and its appalling to me how little they know. Its not their fault. We have allowed all this teaching and teaching to the test and we have not put history on the test. And i will get off my soap box. Just think of that. I do speak to a lot of School Groups probono, this is my 81st speech this year. In 2015. I will have well over 100 by the time veterans day is over. Im speaking pretty much nonstop from the first to the 14th of november. To a lot of groups. Multiple, three in a day, four in a day. So, im sort of a bit of a work horse around veterans day and around memorial day, i have been invited to the National WorldWar Ii Museum for memorial day of 2016. I will speak at that event specifically about the selection of the world war ii unknowns and how that was so complicated compared to the other selections that was done. As a 20yearold soldier of the United States army, i was given a huge gift, an enormenormou ani was selected to be one of these guys. And that is me. This was taken on the fourth month anniversary of my first ever walk on the mat, and we refer to the mat as this piece of rubberized material, that is 63 feet long. It serves several purposes. One is to insulate from the granite, and it is to give traction. And the main reason its there is to prevent the shoes from wearing a groove in the granite. Because the granite is constantconstant ly walked on. Same path, same number of steps, scantly since midnight, july 2nd, 1937. When it was discovered that people were coming in at night to chip pieces a off to take home as souvenirs. We will talk about it in a bit. Now, this, this piece of marble is from colorado, and its several pieces of marble. The cap stone is 12 tons. Quart quarried in 1931 out of colorado and brought to this place and finished in place, this carving was done after it was set in place. Here rests in honor glory, an american soldier known but to god. That phrase of was verbatim from soldiers graves in france and belgium that said, here rests an american soldier known but to go god. This dye block is 36 tons. It is cracking. You can see the crack. I will show you more about the replacement project that was on schedule and then stopped by legislation in 2009. The base is 15 tons and there are four pieces in the sub base. Four tons a piece, for a total of 79 tons. Now, the fourth month anniversary was the first day that i got to wear this badge on my right breast pocket. And it is the tomb guard identification badge, mine is number 78 and we are giving today in arlington, we are giving away number 634 for that person the o keep, this badge h one stipulation, and that is, it can be revoked for as long as i live. We have revoked at least 21 of them. For conduct unbecoming a tomb guard for those who have committed felonies, and other such transgressions that have brought shame upon the tomb, the unknown soldier and the u. S. Army. We have a motto in our society like the boy scout motto is be prepared. Ours is soldiers never die until they are forgotten and tomb guards never forget. And we have a creed, and it goes like this, my dedication to this sacred duty is total and whole hearted and the responsibility bestowed on me, never will i falter and with dignity and my standard will remain perfection, through the years of diligence and praise, i will walk my tour to the best of my ability. It is he who commands my respect i protect. And surrounded by wellmeaning crowds by day, alone in the thoughtful peace of night. We take that to heart as guards and we take it to heart later in our lives as well. A bit of history, i get a feeling that we have history buffs in this room. Hands, please. We will start with 1669. A ships captain, robert housing, was given 6,000 acres of land across what is now washington, d. C. , can you imagine, any real estate people in here . Can you tell in he what you telt an acre of land is worth there . A bunch. Multiply it by 6,000, current value of the property, no improvements on it of course, just the raw property. He sold it for six barrels of tobacco. Now, moving forward, the property ends up in the alexander family, john and philiply fil Philip Alexander establish the area and its a big of slave trading hub in Northern Virginia and this is crucial later on. In 1778, a guy with a famous mother buys 1100 of the 6,000 acres and his name is john park custus, im related to him. My first forebearer settled in connecticut, and he arrived in 1630. My mother was a dar, i have relatives on both sides would fought in the american revolution. So, he his mother is martha dandrige custus washington, she is not washington yet, of course. In 1759, his mother remarys George Washington and his name was john, they call him jackie. Jackie and patsy were raised at mt. Vernon. Now, so, 1778, he buys this property. He is an aide to his adoptive father at the siege of yorktown, the siege is over, cornwalis is taken over, they are encamped there and he got sick and die fr from camp fever. That could have been anything, yellow fever, malaria possible. And he died and passed the property to his six month old son. Named in honor of his adoptive grand foefr grandfather. He builds it over 30 years. You did not go to the bank and get a mortgage. You bought materials and built it as it went along. It took him 16 years to complete. I want to do point out this grave, this is the grave of ho are horatio wright, i talk about who is buried in arlington. Horatio wright got as close to the front door of the mansion as anybody and there was a contest to get as close to the front of the house as possible and i will explain why it was crucial to do that. That is a big place, thats a park ranger standing there. House is 142 feet from end to end. Now, he has four children. Only one of them lives to be an adult. Only one of them lives pass being infancy. And in 1831, june 30th, she ma s marries her third cousin. Robert e lee. Now, lee never owns the property. It is always in the custus family name. And in 1863, she will be charged a tax, awill not pay it in person, and she is charged to do. I will talk about it in a minute. He lives here and considers it home. He is superintendent of west point, 1853 and 1854. He is on the Mississippi River surveying for 40s near where i grew up in iowa, and he comes back and considering it his home. He never owns the property. His father, light horse harry wl lee. A financial deadbeat, abandons this family, his family, when hee lee is young, very young, 5 years old. He goes off to the to the islands, and the atlantic, what aim thinking about, caribbean. And on his way back, he dies, lee spoke of him once on record. And it was a fleeting mention. His name will come up in a bit. So, in 1861, we know what happens. Fort sumter is fired on and lee is summoned to the District Of Columbia and meets with and offered union troops. He refuses and several kdays later goes to richmond. Tells his wife to come as soon as possible, and it took her a couple of weeks. You know how the ladies are, you have to get the china packed and this packed. Is that a sexist comment. Okay, she took her time. She on comes and yeah. Thats right. And a few weeks later, federal troops come across after the voters of virginia have voted to succeed. He fights the first major land battle of the war. He loses because a guy shows up in the afternoon named jackson. Doesnt have a nickname, but he gets it at that battle, that day. And they say, there stands jackson like a stonewall. Is that a good thing or bad thing . We dont know, he is shot and died the following morning without the opportunity to explain the comment. But jackson likes it and keeps it. Federal troops occupy the land they never try to retake this place and remembering, that this had is a slave holding, this was a slave holding plantation, within sight of the Nations Capital until the federal troops came across in 1861, they come across and in 1863, the law is passed, and mrs. Lee is ordered to show up in person to pay 92. 07 in tax on this property. Now, had she is not stupid. She has a good chance of being taken prisoner if she shows up in person, so she sends a male relative, and its refused. So the property is legally seized. And in a wellattended auction and the one bidder is the government, and they get it for below fair market value. Now, this guy is the most Important Union general nobody ever heard of. His had name is montgomery cunningham meggs, he was born in augusta augusta, georgia and educated in the north at west point and he considered anybody who was educated in west point, and fought for the confeddracy, a traitor and should be hung. He did not get his way. Lee was free to go. And went to washington university, or Washington College and became washington and lee later in virginia. But he was Quarter Master general, when the war broke out, it was joseph ejohnston, and if you know your history, he was an effective general for if United States. He and William Sherman became Close Friends after the war. Johnston was of a pall bearer and refused to keep his hat on. Ands this is a story. So, montgomery cunningham meggs, from mid may 1861 to the end of the war, he was credited with accounting for every cent that the union army spent. 1. 5 billion, praapproximately. Okay, every cent was accounted for by this gentleman. He was the one who recommended in 1864 that we start using the the union start using the plantation as a burial ground, it was a way to shame lee, and testi it was to make this place that he considered home, a graveyard. The next day, a private blatt is buried, he is the first combat fatality, and then another dies in the hospital and comes over and buried in arlington. This is in section 27. In section 27, its one of my favorites. Ity it is where a lot of the unknowns and color troops, escaped slaves and citizens, free blacks, many were buried there, and section 27 is a stones throw from the iwagima memorial is. You go across the wall and you are in section 27. And its fascinating to walk around and read the stones and the dates of death and etcetera. Now, arlington looked like this in 1865. Over grown with weeds. These are not stones, they are wooden planks that are painted white and painted with black paint. Up keep could be horrible. So, in 1873, the congress authorized the use of marble head stones. These are buried mostly in a segregated section. Though most are integrated with whit white enlisted men. This is a mass grave. They sealed the deal, to make sure that the lees would not come back. They put the bones of 2011 of soldiers, their names and deaths are recorded in the archives of their country and they are honored. May they rest in peace, september, 1866. Is jessica in the room . Okay. Thats okay. There you are. Would you come and touch my hand, please. This is i thought you were going to be right over here. You are going to i will meet you in the middle. Okay. There you go. Okay. A thats it. Thank you. Okay. Now, jessica just touched my hand. Im a live, arent i, jessica . Yes. Sometimes my kids wonder. You just touched my hand, this handheld the hand of a man who was born that year and i called him grand pa. Now i do it with school kids and they cant believe that im standing here talking to them. That i am only three generations from this date in my family. For me talking to you, to this man that i whose hand i touched who was born that year. The civil war is not ancient history as some like to believe it is. To them, to school kids, vietnam is ancient history. World war ii, they dont know when it was fought. And i take, i take personal pride in taking that message and informing them about the sacrifice that has been made on their behalf that they should know about it. And they need to know about it. So, this mass grave, now he did not just lay bodies in there. He stacked all the skulls together. And he nested the pelvis together so is they would feet and he stacked the femurs and ribs together. A bit worried, okay. But this was to make sure that the lees would not want to occupy this quote haunted place by all the spirits of 2111, were they all Union Soldiers . Probably not. They were skeletal remains, who knows, dug up for years after the fact. Now world war i comes along, we are in 1914, the centennial observance of that. Im not going to say celebration, observance of the horrible slaughter. The u. S. Lost 162,000, 63,000 other deaths many of those deaths the spanish flu of 1918, it was called the spanish flu, they were the noncombatant countries saying how can wemany dying, and the other countries who were in combat would not, because it would tell weakness. So the spanish flu was called that because they were numbering the losses britts lost some that were never had found. And the french lost 1. 4 million. 2,000 additional civilian deaths. The germans, 2. 2 million. Nobody knows how many the russians lost, at least 2 million, they were not good record keepers. In 1915, following the second battle of ypris, there were five battles, it never fell. The town was reduced to rubble, but it never fell. A doctor after 17 days of nonstop battle, he was both a doctor and soldier. He was helping h ining when he mend boys and save their lives and after 17 days he sat on the end of an ambulance wagon and wrote the following poem. In flanders field the poppies blow. Scarce heard aa midst the guns. [ inaudible ] now we lie in flanders fields, take up our quarrel with the foe. Be yours to hold it high, if ye break faith we shall not die. And the story is he threw the poem in the trash and a friend of his rescued it and sent it to london, and a few months later in the fall of 1915, punch published it and it went viral, if anything could go viral in that year. It did. The blood red poppy with the red center was adopted. I love that blood red poppy that they wear for remembrance day, the veterans of foreign wars created the buddy poppy and it was sold when i was a kid on street corners he everywhere. In iowa where i grew up, we walked down the street and around november 11th, you would see that every corner, the widows and orphans of the great war were to benefit. Now, you dont see that so much anymore. The britts and the french entomb unknowns. Its known as the tomb of the unknown warrior. And the french added an eternal flame to their tomb. No, that was Jackie Kennedy as inflati kennedys inspiration. In 1921, the military hierarchy thought we were going to identify everybody and it was inappropriate to have all to represent those all unidentified. We had many, many names of missing and no way to connect these with these. So, they said, okay, lets do this. So they went to four american cemeteries in france, and exhumed four unknowns, they brought them to a Central Place and put them in identical caskets. This is where the selection took place. They brought them in, and took great care, destroyed all the records pertaining to those grave sites and examined the body to make sure there was nothing on them that could identify them to unit, rank or anything. And over the night, the crew came in and moved them all around so nobody could think that that morning that that one was the sitting there yesterday, that was from this cemetery and maybe there was to way that anybody could possibly know which was which. It was like the old shell game. So, the next morning the private, sgt. Edward f younger was given a spray of white roses by a townsman. Who had lost two sons in the war and he laid the roses on one of the four caskets and that was our unknown soldier and here he is coming out of the town. They are taking him to the train. Those are the roses, those roses will stay on the casket across the ocean and in to the cript in Arlington National cemetery. That is john jpersing. And then to the ship. The ruben james was torpedoed before pearl harbor. So, here he goes. Capital rotunda, coming out. You can tell when direction its moving because the stripes point the way. He is coming down the steps. Here is persing, he is walking up and up pennsylvania avenue, up m street and across the river on the aqueduct bridge, there was no Memorial Bridge yet. It was not built until the 1930s. So, this is warren g harding. One of the best ever president s. Just kidding. Presiding over the unknown soldier and this is persing, dropping a fist full of soil on the top of the casket. The crypt has two layers of ground that he died defending. This is what the tomb looked like. This is from the old quarry, the original, the first tomb. So, had this woman in mourning clothes, is a widow of one of the 3,173 mias. And theres a possibility, slim, that that is indeed her loved one in that crypt. That is why the selection was done with such great care to make sure that nobody could know who was in that grave. So, in 1925, a veteran of the great war comes around the corner and finds a family having a picnic lunch on top of the tomb of the unknown soldier. He goes to the white house. He walks through the gate. He does not have to jump the fence. He walks through the gate. And walks up to the door and rings the door bell and somebody answers. This is getting funnier, and he gets in, and he said, what do you want . And i said, i want to see the president , and what been . Peek a people are having a picnic on the tomb of the unknown soldier and we have to do something about it. He meets thepresident , and they start guarding the tomb of the unknown soldier. I was a tomb guard and they say, you were in the marine corp, and i say, well, i have are the utmost respect, of the marine corp, they go where others fear to tread, but the army is thor is service, a bit older than the marine corp and arlington is administered by the department of the army. Most other cemeteries are administered by the department of veterans affairs, arlington and the old soldiers and sailors home is department of the army. Now, just going to leap ahead quickly. They have just knoc