My daughter's face began to flush. Those in the military know about death, of course. Major Rossi's husband, Chief Warrant Officer John Anderson Cayton, told the mourners at her funeral that he had prayed hard for his wife's safety while he was serving in Kuwait. His were not the prayers that come on Hallmark cards. And I prayed to the Lord to take care of my sweet little wife.
Habits fade away slowly, just like old soldiers.
We have a lot of burials on Monday. Hundreds of military women turned out at Arlington, wearing stripes and ribbons and badges indecipherable to most civilians. One was wearing her husband's shirt under her old uniform. The shirts sold at the PX with narrow enough shoulders, she explained, don't fit over the bust. No one knows how many women are buried in their own military right under the 220,000 pristine headstones at Arlington.