🎺 Where Will They Go When There's No More Room in Arlington?

Honoring those who served and have fallen and asking a question for the ages about war on Memorial Day

Early in the aftermath of 9/11, as the devastating war in Iraq ground forward, I started writing a song about Arlington National Cemetery’s growing pains, aiming both to honor those who’ve served this nation in the most fundamental and dangerous way and ask a question about the neverending practice, and price, of war.

Here’s the tune as recorded for my first album, in 2013, with a verse generously sung by my friend Dar Williams, along with a an early lyric sheet annotated with some suggestions by my dear departed musical mentor and friend Pete Seeger and some more context.

I’d learned the cemetery was running out of room given the pace at which veterans of past wars and other service are dying of old age. As a reporter, I’d often stumbled onto stories, and this seemed like an important one. But, in the end, it made a better ballad than newspaper article.

More than two dozen funerals are conducted at the cemetery each weekday, with six to eight services on Saturdays. Reflecting that pace, as the Associated Press reported in 2015, most of the buglers playing Taps are using electronic bugle simulators.

As I first explained on my New York Times blog long ago, the song grew out of a chance observation on a reporting visit to Washington, D.C., during the buildup of troops in Iraq. At the Arlington Metro stop, a family dressed mainly in black boarded the train. I heard them chatting about the funeral they’d attended (of a Vietnam vet) and someone mentioned that the preacher noted Arlington was slowly running out of room.

Fascinated, I did some sifting, sensing a story. But John Woestendiek of the Baltimore Sun had already done an amazing feature exploring this issue. The cemetery was hosting more than two dozen funerals a day (spawning my lyric “gray veterans and fresh fallen side by side…”).

I began noodling in my favorite guitar tuning (dadgad) around the core question: “Where will they go when there’s no more room in Arlington?”

I did more homework on the history of the cemetery, which was built on land taken from Robert E. Lee, the West Point graduate who ended up fighting for the South. Two thousand dead from the Battle of Bull Run were buried together in Mrs. Lee’s rose garden. The song percolated for awhile as I settled on chords and melody lines. Pete Seeger scribbled some ideas for shifts in lyrics in 2005. I embraced some, but not all. See what you think!

The space crunch at the cemetery could be eased somewhat by an expansion plan, as explained on the Arlington National Cemetery website. But the same article explains the sobering math of military service (and of course most veterans are buried elsewhere):

As of 2022, ANC has fewer than 75,000 burial opportunities, with over 23 million active-duty service members, retirees and veterans living today. Without changes to eligibility, ANC will run out of space for new burials by 2041, or by the mid-2060s with the eventual completion of the Southern Expansion project.

Can we outgrow war?

These days, armed forces increasingly find themselves hauling survivors from the wreckage of collapsed cities or providing aid to tsunami victims, even as they remain poised to do leaders’ bidding on battlefields. A decade ago, I thought for a time that the Steven Pinkers of the world were right and we were entering a slow transition toward widespread peace and toward a new definition of security including security from natural hazards, along with the human species’ darker tendencies.

So much for that idea, given the widespread saber rattling out there.

Here’s the song on YouTube:

Learn more about the song and the recording here:

Finally, my musical friend and neighbor here in Downeast Maine,

Scott Cleveland

, just posted a moving bit of verse walking through the history of those who fought on front lines in this nation’s long list of battles:

Memorial