The Memorial Stone

I visited Arlington Cemetery today in order to see, check and take a photo of dad & mom's new memorial stone. I had been meaning to do so for a while now ... ever since Billee let us know that it was up.

Here [above and left] is the front.

I'm not certain why all those theaters are mentioned ... I don't remember dad being involved in Vietnam and with Korea I think it was peripheral at best, but I could be wrong of course. They must have their own way and set of criteria for figuring that out.


Here's the obverse.

This is, of course, what most of the spouse headstones say.

However, I did see a significant percentage [fairly new ones even] that included variations ... such as "His Beloved Wife" and also adding a line below the dates with either "Beloved Mother" or "Beloved Mother and Grandmother".

I would have liked that. However, I understand that the current policy at Arlington seems to preclude variations. I'm not certain when that policy took effect, but it seems to be fairly recent. Personally I think that a little leeway should be allowed. But who am I, right?