The sentinels of the 3rd U.S. Infantry, guard the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
They walk the plaza 24 hours a day. They do it 365 days a year. The changing of the guard happens every 30 minutes during the cemetery’s open hours in the spring and summer and every two hours after the grounds close.
It is a solemn place of respect. But sometimes, people show that their mother’s failed to teach them any decency or decorum.
Occasionally, some in the crowd at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier get stupid, and it is up to the guards to call out their bad behavior.
“It is requested that everyone maintains a level of silence and respect”, says the soldier as he stops in stance and demands silence from a disrespectful crowd with rifle out front.
You could have heard a pin drop that day.
The guard made a decision and made it clear that even the dead commanded basic respect. He didn’t do it to intimidate the onlookers. The guard merely expected them to show some respect to the monument. He first laid an example for the visitors by remaining silent himself and only then expected the others to follow.
They work long and hard to get it perfect!
It’s all in the cadence. The soldiers practice their steps with a metronome, set to 72 beats per minute, the tempo of a slow march. A regal adagio time signature. Being chosen as a tomb guard is a rare honor, and even after training for five to seven months, they practice daily. The soldiers assigned to the duty serve 18-24 months.
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If you are going to attend a military memorial, especially the Tomb of The Unknown Soldier, just keep your mouth shut.
These idiots have no respect. The guard does not put up with it. The Tomb of the unknowns is typically visited by people who come here to reflect on the lives of the dead in silence. And yet there was this insolent group who burst out laughing without showing the least bit of respect for the monument.
This is part of the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in DC. TOWARDS THE END, the crowd starts to get loud and the Sentinel calls them out:
The Tomb of the Unknowns at the Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, U.S.A. was first built in 1921.
Its purpose was and still is to remember and honor those soldiers who have died in service but could not be identified.
The monument, which was originally meant to represent those who fell in the First World War, but it was expanded in 1931 and now commemorates all unknown soldiers. It lies on the top of a hill looking over Washington D.C. It is an important place for many Americans, particularly the military.
Three years after the end of the First World War, the United States Congress agreed to have an unidentified American soldier buried in the Memorial Amphitheater. The nameless serviceman was transported over the Atlantic Ocean from France. After bringing them home, they buried the body beneath a three-level marble tomb.
