Remembering Dad's Legacy - Honor a Fallen Soldier through Service

By Paige Whitlock

On February 22, 1970 one week before his return to the United States, John Wilson Roberts III was killed outside Da Nang Vietnam. His tank hit a mine. He was a twenty-four-year-old, father of one - me.

Arlington Cemetery looms heavy on my heart.  While some visit to witness the sacrifice citizens have given for our country, others, like me, make the trek with weighted souls and paper passes. 

Waved into the cemetery by a park employee, we exchange glimpses of sorrow.  He knows what that pass represents. Held safe in a faded envelope with the name Louise Roberts scrawled in a child’s handwriting, my pass turned 42 this year. 

It was relinquished to me when my grandmother could no longer drive to Arlington from her home in Maryland; I promised to put a Christmas tree on my father’s grave and visit for his birthday. At that moment, I failed to recognize the gravity of this gift.

And so I visit. Not for myself or even for the promise to my grandmother, but for the memory of my father.  Those visits to Arlington whether it be winter dreary around Christmas, colored by autumn leaves summersaulting over the graves, blooming with spring buds or sun-scorched with grass cracking under my feet, I swallow my own loss and leave the car for the gravesite. 

There I reconcile the name and human being whose last days weren’t spent in his beloved Maryland but in the soggy jungles of Vietnam; the palpable hurt collides with my responsibility to honor my father more than during a visit.  His service and sacrifice to our country require me to serve.

Perhaps the truest honor one can bestow on this Memorial Day is not simply visiting a grave, attending a parade to honor our Veterans, or praying at a memorial service, it is the pledge you can make to serve. 

Beyond that pledge, it is the daily commitment that you forge in the memory of those who gave their energies, talents and ultimately their lives to uphold the values of this country.

My father’s lacrosse sticks hang in my McLean High School office; they are a constant reminder of him and why I serve this community.  On this Memorial Day, make the promise to our fallen soldiers – service in their honor.

 Paige Whitlock was eight months old when her father died. She is now an assistant principal at McLean High School.