"The Adventure of War"

"Hell's fire." said Dwight D. Eisenhower as he shook the hand of Colonel Keith Ware, who once commanded 1st Battalion. 15th Infantry Regiment. "I used to command that outfit myself." The President was trading service talk about the ist Battalion, 15th Infantry and about other outfits with each of 216 Medal of Honor holders, who came to see him in the White House's rose garden on Memorial Day before they all went out to the burial of the unknown servicemen from World War II and Korea. Meeting an aging vet from the Philippine Scouts, he said, "I served out there with them five years.'' Each time he saw an empty right sleeve hidden in a pocket, he reached for the warrior's left hand and held it firmly. One Medalist said, "It's my pleasure, Mr. President,'' and Ike shot back warmly. "Well, it's my honor.''

"You have offered on the field of battle the very most that can be offered in defense of those ideals and those principles on which America stands," he said huskily, knowing what it means to win the Medal of Honor. "Anyone who has been through the adventure of war with men such as you could find in his heart today many things that he would like to say over and above anything I have so feebly tried to express. I think the best thing I can do, on behalf of the United States, on behalf of the people and of myself personally and officially, is to say thank you --and thank a merciful Providence that you are all here."

The bond among men who have known battle, those who survived it and those who did not, held together the band from the rose garden as they crossed the placid Potomac in the 82DEG afternoon sun to the shining white memorial at Arlington National Cemetery. There, in fresh graves flanking the tomb of World War I's Unknown Soldier, they were to bury two unknown comrades of the last two wars. Close overhead came Air Force jet fighters and bombers, the lead wingman of each formation dramatically missing to represent those who do not come back.

The Medal of Honor winners and the honor guards from the four services all snapped smartly to attention as the President, acting "on behalf of a grateful people," placed a Medal of Honor upon each flag-covered casket. In this sparse ritual honoring two men whose particular names are "known but to God,'' a democracy paid tribute to the courage of the assorted millions who fought for its freedoms. And in respect for all those who died in that service, the Unknowns were given burial services by three chaplains, in Latin by the Roman Catholic, English by the Protestant and Hebrew by the Jew. After the boom of a final 21-gun salute, and the rattle of three volleys of rifle fire, the haunting call of Taps echoed across Arlington's markers and across the Potomac as the last solemn note of a day of communion among patriots.

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