Final Salute

THE SERGEANT WITH no legs sat inside the cemetery, thinking about how this homecoming was supposed to happen.

Sergeant Edwards had spent the past two months in a hospital bed, grimacing as he devised his own painful physical regimen to strengthen the tender stumps that end just above his knees, hoping to earn his prosthetic legs early. His unit, including the man who saved his life, wasn’t supposed to return from Iraq for several months, so he figured he had plenty of time to learn how to walk.

"I wanted to walk when they came off the bus. {I wanted} to see all of them, but especially Doc,” he said. "I wanted to shake his hand and say, ’Thank you.’ ”

In late December 2006, near the perfect rows of headstones that stretched up and along the hillsides at Arlington National Cemetery, the man in the wheelchair spoke in a soft, quiet southern drawl.

The sergeant’s body remained riddled with shrapnel wounds, pitting the skin on his entire left side with deep pink scars. What was left of his legs jutted from the wheelchair, filling only a fraction of his jeans, which were folded at the place where his knees used to be. Only one hand worked. He looked over at his wife and two daughters, at his parents, and at the rows and rows of white marble. Somewhere out there was a fresh grave.

As he entered for the first time the place known as our nation’s most sacred shrine, the sergeant said he was unshaken by the seemingly endless headstones. What got to him, he said, were the people left behind.

"I just think about all the families and the people like myself who had to go into Arlington for this.”

The sergeant’s father wheeled him into a waiting room, where he asked to sit in the corner, out of the way. Soon the room was filled with crisp Navy uniforms-admirals, chiefs, and hospital corpsmen, many of them sporting dress coats that jingled with medals. Then down the stairs the sergeant saw the people who wore no uniforms, the ones who wore only grief. As it turned out, the man with no legs didn’t need to learn how to walk. Doc’s family walked over to him.

As Debra Anderson headed to the man in the wheelchair, she was immediately intercepted by another mother.

"Your son saved my son’s life,” Cheryl Edwards said through sobs, locking Debra in a hug. "I thank you. I thank you so much. And I’m sorry, so sorry.”

Together the families walked to Sergeant Edwards, who sat with his three-year-old daughter, Paige, in his lap, and five-year-old Caitlin and his wife, Christina, by his side.

"I wouldn’t have missed it for the world,” the sergeant said quietly. "I didn’t give them a choice at the hospital. I told them I had to come.”

"He did everything right. Be proud of him,” the sergeant said. "If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t be able to hold my daughter on my lap.”

Rick Anderson then bent down in a deep hug. With the knuckle of one finger he brushed the hand of one of the girls and smiled.

Kyle Anderson approached Edwards and during a long embrace told the Marine that he now carried part of his brother with him. Kyle told the sergeant he would always consider Sergeant Edwards his brother, too.

"You just take care of these girls,” Debra said, offering one of the largest smiles that many family members had seen since her son was killed. "We want to watch these girls grow up,” she said.

IN SECTION 60 of Arlington National Cemetery, the sun flashed off the bugle of a lone sailor who stood among the thousands of headstones. Dormant trees stretched toward the blue sky, holding blossoms that had turned brown.

As the Anderson family approached the casket and took their seats, six sailors surrounded it and lifted the flag.

The chaplain spoke and the rifle salute cracked. At the first few notes of taps, Sergeant Edwards hung his head and let his tears fall to his lap. The Navy honor guard folded the flag as if it were starched, slapping each fold into another. A rear admiral presented the flag to Debra. It was over in fifteen minutes.

Debra’s sister, Sherry McDonald, took a bag filled with dark brown dirt collected from the home field of Doc Anderson’s favoritebaseball team, the San Diego Padres. Each family member took a fistful and dusted it on the casket. Debra placed her hand on the casket and held it there for several minutes. She let go slowly.

"Greg says he wished it was him,” she said, crying again. "He says he wishes that it was him who came home in the casket instead of Christopher.”

"They all come home,” Debra Anderson finally managed to say as they stood on the lime green artificial turf laid out over the mud where another family would soon stand. "They all come home.”

AFTER EVERYONE ELSE climbed into their cars and prepared to leave, Rick Anderson stood with Kyle at the gravesite. The two men put their handprints in the dirt and smeared it on the casket. Kyle Anderson said he didn’t want to leave his brother, and once again it fell to his father to persuade him to go.

For the past three weeks Rick Anderson had been the quiet rock, steadying his family, comforting them, looking out for everyone, the way he had taught his son. He spoke at his son’s funeral in Colorado and said he cried long and hard during his private conversations with God. On the outside, with his friendly face and salt-and-pepper mustache, he looked more like the real estate broker that he is rather than a former member of one of the most elite special warfare units in the country.

But after all the quiet, all the stoicism, Rick Anderson stood at the empty gravesite, took a deep breath, and let out a Navy SEAL war cry that carried over the headstones.