ARLINGTON, Va. -- President Joe Biden honored America's war dead at Arlington National Cemetery on Memorial Day by laying a wreath at the hallowed burial ground and extolling the sacrifices of the fallen for the pursuit of democracy.
Biden invoked the iconic battles of history and joined them to the present as he implored Americans to rise above the divisions straining the union, which he described in stark terms.
"Democracy is more than a form of government -- it is a way of being," he said. "Democracy itself is in peril," he added.
"Democracy must be defended at all costs," Biden said.
[Video not showing up above? Click here to watch » https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_ecKm9CRVA]"Democracy, that's the soul of America. And I believe it's a soul worth fighting for. And so do you. A soul worth dying for."
Across the U.S., a nation slowly emerging from social distancing measures imposed by the coronavirus pandemic honored generations of veterans killed in the line of duty on a Memorial Day observed without the severe pandemic restrictions that limited the day of tribute a year ago. Parades and events were held in localities large and small.
The president was joined by first lady Jill Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff in a ceremony at the Virginia cemetery's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, which is dedicated to deceased service members whose remains have not been identified.
His face tight with emotion, Biden walked up to the wreath, cupping it in his hands in silent reflection, then making the sign of the cross. His eyes were wet. Dignitaries and military families were hushed and solemn, the chattering of cicadas loud.
In remarks that followed, the president called on Americans to commemorate their fallen heroes by remembering their fight for the nation's ideals.
"This nation was built on an idea," Biden said. "We were built on an idea, the idea of liberty and opportunity for all. We've never fully realized that aspiration of our founders, but every generation has opened the door a little wider."
He focused on the importance of democracy, saying it thrives when citizens can vote, when there is a free press and when there are equal rights for all.
"Generation after generation of American heroes are signed up to be part of the fight because they understand the truth that lives in every American heart: that liberation, opportunity, justice are far more likely to come to pass in a democracy than in an autocracy," Biden said. "These Americans weren't fighting for dictators, they were fighting for democracy. They weren't fighting to exclude or to enslave, they were fighting to build and broaden and liberate."
But he suggested these ideals are imperiled.
"The soul of America is animated by the perennial battle between our worst instincts, which we've seen of late, and our better angels," he said. "Between 'me first' and 'We the People.' Between greed and generosity, cruelty and kindness, captivity and freedom."
Biden also cited the importance of shoring up institutions.
"Folks, we all know it, democracy thrives when the infrastructure of democracy is strong," he said.
That "infrastructure," he said, includes ensuring "people have the right to vote freely, fairly and conveniently." He also listed a free press that "pursues the truth" and a legal system in which the "rule of law applies equally and fairly to every citizen."
After the ceremony, the Bidens stopped by a row of gravestones in a cemetery where some 400,000 are buried in the gentle hills and hollows.
The Bidens held hands and strolled along the rows of Section 12, one of the primary burial locations of service members killed overseas and repatriated after World War II and the Korean War. They stopped to chat with several families visiting the graves of their loved ones or searching for them.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, joined Biden and Harris in the ceremony.
RESTRICTIONS EASED
With pandemic restrictions lifting, Americans paid tribute in public gatherings this year -- and they also remembered the thousands of veterans who have died from covid-19. Still, there were some vestiges: An early morning wreath laying ceremony at the National Memorial Cemetery of Arizona was shared virtually.
That wasn't the case at a long-delayed veterans and airmen's reunion in West Hills, Calif., a Los Angeles suburb where veterans gathered face-to-face for the first time Monday since their weekly reunions were shut down 14 months ago by the pandemic.
"This is a special group of veterans who are trying not to be homebound," Ed Reynolds, an Air Force and Vietnam War veteran, told KTLA-TV. "It's good to see these faces again. It's sort of emotional," he said, visibly emotional himself.
Reynolds said some 12 members of the group had died over the past year, though none of them from the virus.
In Denver, veterans and their families paid silent tribute among thousands of polished marble headstones, each adorned with an American flag, at Fort Logan National Cemetery -- a scene marked at national cemeteries across the nation.
But in Southern California, authorities said a huge American flag and several smaller flags were stolen from Los Angeles National Cemetery over the weekend.
In Florida, former President Donald Trump joined in remembering the country's fallen heroes.
"The depth of their devotion, the steel of their resolve, and the purity of their patriotism has no equal in human history," Trump said in a statement posted on his website. About 20 miles north of Trump's Mar-a-Lago compound in Palm Beach, dozens of boats held a Memorial Day parade along the waters of Jupiter.
KENTUCKIANS RETURNED
The remains of two Kentucky men who died 80 years ago during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor were returned to the commonwealth this week for burial.
U.S. Navy Fireman 3rd Class Welborn L. Ashby's niece Paula Kern told The Courier Journal that her mother had always been haunted by the uncertainty surrounding Ashby's death.
The family was told the 24-year-old was declared to have lost his life, but the Navy could not locate the body.
Martha Christian was 13 at the time. In the 1990s she travelled to Hawaii, lowering her feet into the cold waters of Pearl Harbor and weeping for her lost brother. In 2011, she donated DNA to help with the identification of remains, but Christian died in 2017, two years before Ashby's remains were positively identified by the federal Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency.
A Memorial Day service was held for Ashby in Beaver Dam, followed by a burial at Centertown Cemetery with military honors, including a "Missing Man" flyover by vintage planes.
Paula Kern said she'll be thinking about her mother and her long quest to have her brother returned home to Kentucky.
"It's what she would have wanted. And we want that closure too," Kern said. "We can't forget all those we've lost."
Ashby was 24 when he died in the Dec. 7, 1941, attack that launched the United States into World War II -- one of 2,403 Americans killed. U.S. Navy Seaman 2nd Class Howard Scott Magers, killed at 18, was another.
Magers' remains arrived in Barren County on Saturday after they were identified by the POW/MIA agency. He was laid to rest with military honors.
Magers' three brothers and one sister have all died, but sister-in-law Betty Magers, now 91, still lives in the Merry Oaks area and remembers a young Howard Magers, the Daily News reported.
"My parents had a general store in Hays," said Betty Magers. "He would come real often to the store.
"We had a jukebox, and he liked to play the song 'South of the Border' by Gene Autry. He was real friendly and always pleasant. I'm just happy that he can be home."
COMING HOME
The body of a U.S. Marine captain killed in World War II is coming home to Tennessee, more than 70 years after a body misidentified as Capt. Glenn Walker was buried there.
Walker was killed in 1943 at age 26 during the Battle of Tarawa, one of more than 1,100 Marines who died during the fight for control of the Pacific island, the Tennessean reported.
Remains of 532 Marines were recovered after the war in 1946, Hattie Johnson, head of the Marine Corps POW/MIA section, told the paper. Walker's dog tags were found near remains that reportedly had a dental match for Walker. Those remains and the tags were returned to Lebanon, Tenn., in 1947 and laid to rest at Wilson County Memorial Park at a family plot.
The POW/MIA agency in 2016 was given authorization to investigate and dig up 94 sets of remains that were never identified and had been buried in Hawaii. Among them was Walker.
Lane Martin, Walker's nephew, who lives in Lebanon, initially thought the voice message from Johnson in March 2020 saying the remains sent to Wilson County weren't actually his uncle's was a hoax.
"I think it's great it's resolved," Martin said. "But I also think about my mother and grandmother not knowing."
"It would never happen today with today's science," Johnson said of the misidentification. "I'm happy for service members who are being returned for proper burials and homecomings they so rightly deserve.
"I know his mother went to her grave believing her son was buried next to her. But she was buried next to a serviceman. Now the job is to find out who that service member is."
Walker graduated from the University of Tennessee and was attending Harvard Law School when he volunteered for the Marine Corps. He had been awarded a Purple Heart at the Battle of Guadalcanal before he was killed.
"He was a true-blue hero," said another nephew, Jimmy McDowell of Lebanon.
Walker's final return home was delayed by covid-19, but his remains are now scheduled to be delivered to Nashville on July 22, with full military honors conducted at the airport, Johnson said.
The family is planning a memorial service and Martin expects about 70 family members.
"I get emotional when I think of the life he could have had," Martin said. "The good is that we've reached out to family all over the country and drawn us back together.
"We're gathering pictures and letters he wrote. We'll display as much of the artifacts that we can, and we'll go to the gravesite. But it will be a huge family reunion."
Information for this article was contributed by Calvin Woodward, James Anderson, Travis Loller, Bobby Caina Calvan, Amy Taxin, Cedar Attanasio and staff members of The Associated Press; and by Annie Linskey of The Washington Post.
