Winter falls to Southern Maryland spring

Daffodils push their way through melting snow

 By John L. Guerra

The stats are in for Winter 2013-2014: National Airport got 32 inches of snow this winter, while many areas, including Southern Maryland, saw more than 50 inches.
It also was industrial-strength cold this winter, with temps remaining in the teens during January, February, and March with a few warmer days giving short respite to the birds and to us.
The cold just didn't seem to want to let go this year. The last snowfall, a mere three weeks ago, landed on fields of bright yellow daffodils blanketing the shores of the Potomac River in Alexandria. That same snow delivered fat, slow snowflakes that fell in beautiful mimicry of the blossoms on ornamental trees along residential streets.
And finally, the chill news of my brother's passing, borne on cold, spring winds under blue skies. The community of Upper Marlboro, the little town on the banks above the slow, meandering Patuxent River, gathered in a memorial hall at the town's Catholic Church to remember Chuck. On that day we assembled as American communities always have assembled when a son of the town has been lost. Family, friends, co-workers, old, young, and respectful all, as powerful as communities on the Great Plains of the 1830s, or as close-knit as a small Massachusetts town in 1940, we practiced what this year was a rite of spring: On the window sill to a hot and yet un-curtained spring, we regarded each other with love and said goodbye to a good man.

Then the earth shifted a little in its equinox and our hemisphere faced a little more directly into the sun and like a kiss, the temperatures moderated, the Southern Maryland soil warmed and the Chesapeake Bay region revealed its gifts.

When you see dogwood trees blooming on the edges of woods, it means shad are running up the Patuxent and its tributaries, including the Western Branch, which runs right behind the courthouse in Upper Marlboro.
Everywhere people are out and about looking for proof of spring: golfers waiting patiently to play atop smooth putting greens; seed packets for spinach, kale, lettuce, and other spring vegetables on market shelves; live bait for sale; and other bait for sale; smoke from roadside barbecue stands; and small fishing parties standing on the docks in Deale and Chesapeake Beach. The parking lot of the Rod 'N Reel is packed with cars as their owners eat lunch inside the restaurant, hopefully with a table by the window so they can watch the charter boats coming and going up the narrow channel of the marina.
Office accountants, car mechanics, retail store clerks--all feel the pride of Southern Marylanders as they watch the mate at the cleaning table scaling the fish they caught.

I love this area; always have, especially the people I grew up with in Upper Marlboro, went to high school with, and now reunited with since Chuck's passing. I realize now how much a part of me each of them is. Like the soil, the smell of the breeze off the springtime Chesapeake Bay, we are all part of this region. Southern Maryland is in our skin, as it was with our parents and their friends. The planting season, the smiling greeting yelled by a farmer on a tractor, tobacco barns--some of these things may be harder to find, but they are still there. One just has to look a little harder.
You'll have to forgive me my soft spot for these springtime signs. It has been a hard winter for all of us, for that season has as its trademark the cold, the slumbering. To the eternal spring, I raise a toast, for it is the beginning of new things.
And now, there's a rite in the fall, called Croomstock. It's been growing each year and brings together many, many friends who spend a weekend celebrating the present and creating new memories. There will be Locks of Love, where people donate their hair to cancer patients, and other activities. It is just another indication of how special this area is. I look forward to my first Croomstock this fall.

A troubled little boy's bizarre hobby

How a kid got his kicks by the highway

This is the first chapter of my second novel, about a haunted house in Upper Marlboro

Billy trudged across the frozen field to the line of trees where the land dropped away. Holding on to a
slim tree, he looked down and saw the roofs of cars speed past.

Stepping sideways, Billy made his way toward the bottom. Thorn bushes grabbed at his clothes, making the descent difficult. He almost slipped several times as he stepped over dead fall and negotiated the thick bramble.

He stood on the edge of the highway. With little warning, the cars appeared out of nowhere, speeding by just an arm's length away. Knowing that drivers didn't know he was there made Billy giddy.

Billy picked up a handful of gravel, weighing the possibilities with his small fist around cold pebbles. He dug into his collection of possible repercussions and wavered. Cracked windshield, surprised driver, sudden swerve, over-correction of the steering wheel, the screech and smell of burnt rubber--and Billy standing in a courtroom with the relatives of the dead driver weeping behind him.

He quickly dropped the gravel and looked around for a better idea. He jumped slightly as two more cars zipped past, just feet from where he stood. He hadn't been paying attention. He had failed to pick up the sound of the approaching cars. He could have been struck and killed.

That was the answer.

Billy walked along the drainage ditch until he found a spot where drivers would have him in sight for the longest interval. Making sure there was no broken glass or snakes warming themselves in the meek February sun, Billy picked a spot where the grass met the gravel shoulder of the road.

He lay face up, putting his arms and legs at impossible angles. Any drivers or, more likely a passenger watching the world go by outside his window, would see Billy's still body laying on the ground just off the shoulder.

There's a dead kid on the side of the road.

Brake lights. That would be the first cue that his plan worked. Then the sound of a car decelerating, then gravel crunching under tires as the driver pulled onto the shoulder to stop. Then, depending on how many people are in the car, the sound of a car door or doors opening, then shutting. If Billy timed it right, he would have several cars pulling over at once, with confused adults yelling for someone to call an ambulance.

On his back, his head lower than his legs--which he put at unnatural angles--Billy placed one of his arms under his body. He stared up at the sky (open eyes on dead people is the money-shot in this particular exercise) and kept perfectly still. Billy held, held, held ... the position.

Brake lights. Rapidly decelerating car. Tires on gravel.

Billy jumped up and ran down the ditch, laughing, exhilarated, his blood pumping through his veins like electricity. The driver, seeing what was happening, cussed Billy, got back in his car and peeled off, throwing gravel in a rooster tail.

Billy howled and jumped up and down. He felt joy at shocking strangers and getting away with it. For those moments, when he was on his back less than a foot from speeding cars and daring himself vulnerable not to move, his heart and pushed blood and oxygen to his brain, shoving energy right where he needed it. In his soul.

Billy jogged back and lay on the ground again, this time putting trash on his legs and other props to improve his act. He tried facing away from the road. Unable to see his face, drivers would more readily assume he was a cadaver.

He heard cars approaching.

Billy's heartbeat jacked up and his chest pumped against his giggling. He held his breath ... held ... held then brake lights lit the dark tree trunks. Decelerating car, gravel crunching under tires, a car skidding in the gravel, the sound of doors opening ...

"Oh my God! It's a little kid!" Billy heard a woman moan in horror. She was too scared to move much beyond her open passenger car door.

"Oh my God," a man said, more quietly.

Billy jumped up and stumbled like a reanimated corpse trying to gain its footing.

"Jesus my God!" the woman screamed. She broke into hysterical sobs.

The man started laughing.

"Maureen, get back in the car. It's OK."

"That poor kid! He's injured! He's hurt!"

"Maureen," he said gently, "Get in the car. Let's get out of here."

The woman caught on. Realizing she'd been duped, yelled, "You little bastard! I hope you really get hit by a car!"

Billy stopped running when the car pulled off and sped away. He laughed long and hard, knowing he'd be here to do it again. He began his climb back up the hill.

Could Malaysia Air passengers be alive?

People fall from miles high--and survive


(Please note my twitter address:    @1johnguerra       I would love to hear from you!)

By John L. Guerra

The world shakes its head in wonder as navies from several nations search for a stolen Boeing 777 with more than 200 passengers aboard. A heavy is gone, without a trace.
That sentence would have sounded absurd just two weeks ago, but not this week. The decades-long mystery of Amelia Earhart's missing Electra aircraft has now been supplanted by Malaysian Airlines Flight 370.

Could a miracle happen? Could the passengers be alive, held in a large warehouse somewhere on an island in the Indian Ocean? Is the large aircraft be safely landed, hidden beneath a huge swath of camouflage netting?
Aviation history teaches us that it ain't over until it's over, that miracles do occur in mid-air and passengers survive. For instance, in World War I, there are stories of pilots or gunners falling out of their open cockpits, only to land on another flying biplane below. One man actually fell out of his plane and landed back in it.
These true stories of aviation miracles are taken from Historynet.com.

Gunner falls from plane, reunites in mid-air: During a dogfight in January 1918, Royal Flying Corps pilot Capt. Reginald Makepeace (this is his real name) turned his Bristol F.2B biplane into a steep dive, throwing his gunner out. The gunner and the biplane were in the same angle of dive, so they somehow came together again. Next thing he knew, the gunner was holding on to the tail section for dear life. He crawled back into his seat. The lucky gunner had fortune in another way: he continued his war, shooting down 11 more enemy aircraft before war's end, giving him a total 17 kills. After the war he moved to Chicago.

• Pilot falls 3 miles into the Pacific, lives: Marine Lt. Cliff Judkins, flying an F-8 Crusader fighter jet during mid-air refueling, pulled his ejection seat when his jet caught fire.
  
  The seat failed to eject. He kicked the canopy out and jumped. When he pulled his parachute ring, the chute opened only partially, creating a bundle of cloth wrapped in the shrouds high above his head. Judkins should have been killed twice by now, but he was still alive and able to understand that he had three miles to fall to the Pacific Ocean. The tangled chute slowed him but he still hit the ocean at 110 mph. He survived the fall with two severely broken ankles, a broken pelvis and vertebra, a partially collapsed lung and various lesser injuries.

• Captain sucked through windshield, survives: The captain of British Airways Flight 5390, flying from Birmingham, England to an island off Spain, was doing just fine until the windscreen on his left side blew out when the aircraft was at 17,300 feet. Capt. Tim Lancaster was sucked through the opening to the outside of the aircraft, but the backs of his knees jammed against the top of the hole and his feet caught under the yoke of the control column. Another member of the crew grabbed his legs. The wind flailed Lancaster's head against the outside of the fuselage like a snare drum for quite a few air miles. The crew assumed he was dead; his eyes were open but blank. Tough to picture, but suffice it to say that Lancaster's body was in an impossible contortion. He lived: His body went comatose from the shock and force of the blows but he revived a few days later (the plane landed with him still sticking out of the window). He suffered a fractured arm and wrist.

• Young woman survives after plane breaks apart: Peruvian LANSA Flight 508 from Limablew up in mid-air after lightning struck at 21,000 feet. The world learned that 86 passengers and three crew members had died in the crash. That number, however, had to be reduced to 85 dead about two weeks later. That's when 17-year-old Juliane Koepcke walked out of the jungle and asked for help. How did she survive the fall to earth? The seats were attached in rows of three; when the plane exploded, Juliane stayed belted in her seat, though the other seats lost their passengers. So the two empty seats with her in the third created a spiraling effect--just like those helicopter seeds you toss in the air. She spun all the way to the jungle canopy two miles below. She landed in an area thick with vines, which broke her fall. She unsnapped her seat belt, stood up, and began to walk. Unable to see out of one eye, wearing one sandal and a mini-skirt, she stepped out of the jungle 12 days later, right into the town where the plane was scheduled to land before it fell from the sky.

• Plane keeps flying without passengers: In February 1943, a C-87, the cargo version of the military B-24, took off from West Palm Beach for the Azores.
• The crew leveled off at 9,000 feet (nearly two miles) but 90 miles off shore, the plane soon started to misbehave. The pilot turned west, back toward West Palm Beach but things got worse. The crew threw everything overboard, but no good. The pilot ordered everyone out, including himself. Eight went out the door, but Coast Guard vessels could only find six. The two are lost to history. However, the plane, bereft of the humans, leveled out and flew on. It traveled another 1,300 miles, crossing the Gulf of Mexico (it was on auto pilot, due west) and arrived above the town of Zaragoza, Mexico. Once above the town, it flew lazy circles above the town and eventually crashed into a nearby mountain.

           -- From "Amazing But True Stories," by Stephan Wilkinson, Historynet.com

A ship captain's sorrow, a sister's threatened future

Novel recounts Key West at its grimy, passionate best

 

 

For those of you who read my blog regularly, you know that no subject is beyond my attempts at analysis: UFOs and nuclear weapons; the modern-day hunt for brontosaurs in the Congo; the notorious ride of the first monkey in space, and other unique topics.

This week I want to pass on this review of my first novel--please buy it and read it. I am certain you'll read every word.

 

 

From a Key West newspaper: 

 

"Maddie's Gone," John Guerra's novel that spans generations of Key West history, is now available in paperback.

The novel, which　scores a　4.5 out of　5 on Amazon's reader review scale,　is rich in detail and characters that include a heroin junkie, a serial killer, and an old fisherman with regrets.
The main tale--the story of a dog's desperate ordeal--wraps around short stories in which the dog, Maddie also appears during her adventure. It all ties together for an ending readers never expect.
In one story, "Dying Declaration," an old man describes the day in 1962 when two men came to stay in his mother's guest house on Whitehead Street. He was just a boy when the men stood at their third-story window watching JFK drive by in a motorcade to the Truman White House. A year later, the men would kill the president from another window in Dallas.
In "Honor Student," a Key West High School senior worries that her boyfriend is trying to sleep with her 14-year-old sister. She decides to handle it Conch-style, which draws hard questions from a homicide detective.
In perhaps the most surprising stories, "Manny's Story," an old shrimp boat captain tells a young man with marital troubles a story to help him see the light. As the young man listens, Manny tells him of how his wife lost her life aboard their shrimp boat during a storm. And she wasn't just washed overboard, either.
Readers have enjoyed the plot and the characters in the novel. Here are some reviews:

--"This is a book that grabs from the start and takes the reader in an ever-expanding vista of Key West at its grimy and passionate best," wrote Daniel Strong.
--"As a Keys-a-phobe, I loved the embedded stories rich with believable characters. I also came to love Maddie. I hope to see more from this author."
--"Knowing Key West, it was great to see it through the dog's eye. Her encounters with so many different 'characters' was just like what we as humans see there. Great storyline."
--"The Key West newspaperman delivers a great first novel built around the tale of a missing Jack Russell terrier. I loved the scenes in the lives of Cuban families ... "

"Maddie's Gone" is available in paperback from Amazon.com, Barnesandnoble.com, and as an ebook from absolutelyamazingebooks.com.

Time to admit what UFOs really are

From Keys to Virginia, Americans see odd lights in the sky

 

___________________________

A resident of Ashburn, Va., points to the end of his street. A formation of lights hung low over the ground for more than a half hour before leaving in two groups. The event occurred in August 2012.
'Arc of light' videotaped over Ashburn, Virginia

Two weeks ago, they were back.
___________________________                                                       


Human beings are at a loss when faced with gigantic truths. Take nuclear attack, for instance. Most futurists--historians, sociologists, scientists--say with certainty that the nightmare of nightmare events will occur in America at some point. Has to. The odds are too great and increase each year.
Yet how often do we, including our politicians, stop what we're doing for a couple of hours to consider what this means. How it will affect our lives, nation, world. Are you ready to become a refugee? To be part of a human herd of refugees living in tents spread across several square miles of open country? It's the nicest part of a nuclear event over a city. I believe if Americans took the time to examine what a nuclear explosion really means, they'd no longer feel like working, paying the bills, or in some cases, would stop following the rules. In short, if we understood that the nation's economy, any retirement we're saving for, and everything we embrace is doomed, we'll realize we're all wasting our time. To make life mean something, we take the nuclear war truth and we put nit up on a shelf and forget it. We think about the nightmare truth whenever North Korea launches a ballistic missile or India and Pakistani troops clash over Kashmir, but that's not very often or for very long.
The U.S. Government has directed us to prepare for such events; Congress has passed laws creating a legal framework for the role local, state and federal agencies will play in the eventuality of societal collapse. In other words, there are plans in place for when it happens.
Yet if you are like me, you haven't given the idea of societal collapse much thought. Well, I confess I do think about such things from time to time, but most sane people will shrug or avoid the idea and attend to more important endeavors such as work, picking up the kid from school, or taking a good nap.

What do UFO sightings mean?

In a lengthy discussion about UFOs with my sister a couple of weeks ago, it struck me that there's not much doubt left there, either. When I say UFOs, I don't mean aircraft that simply don't look right, or behave oddly. I mean solid objects entering the world's air space that are not engineered or operated by humans.
I know, that's quite a statement. If they are not from Earth, then what are they? Good thing I've got a crowd of people who agree with me--and if you can't call these people experts, there are no experts.
In the Keys, military personnel and pilots also have seen unexplainable craft in the sky: http://johnguerra.blogspot.com/2012/07/ufos-have-overflown-keys-for-years.html

What convinced me were the thousands of people of science and engineering--nuclear physicists, aeronautical engineers, national security officials, commercial and private pilots, air traffic controllers, radar operators, air force generals and personnel from the U.S. and other of the world's nations believe the same thing.
What really nails it for me are the astronauts who also are scientists. Not one, not five, but dozens of U.S. astronauts and flight specialists--rocket scientists--have stated, for the record, that extraterrestrial craft have followed or even approached them on missions to the moon and in low earth orbit. They had equipment to measure the size, mass, and speed of these objects. They recorded on film the impossible changes of direction the vehicles performed in view of their own space craft.
These craft have been demonstrating their maneuverability in broad daylight and at night since at least 1947, the Year of the Flying Saucer. That summer they suddenly were everywhere in the country, reports of sightings pouring into police departments, newspapers, and television stations in June, July, and in the midst of this saucer craze, one went down in Roswell. Forget the alien bodies being recovered and stored in some government vault. I'm talking about what can be proved by eyewitnesses, with scientific instruments, and still and video cameras. There are the radar images in air traffic control towers, military bases, and very credible eyewitnesses
When tens of thousands of people witness the same sighting, as in the case of the Phoenix lights and the several nights where thousands of people watched flying discs zip above the White House, the Mall, and down the Potomac River.

Mr. Saucer goes to Washington

In 1952, a formation of seven flying saucers flew up and down the East Coast over several nights in what seemed intentional showboating. President Harry Truman was aware of it and asked his military to keep him apprised. On a Saturday night, they showed up over Washington, D.C., picked up by Andrew's Air Force Base and National Airport towers. Military pilots scrambled after them in fighter jets. They surrounded one and flew off. The National Guard pilot went on record saying he was no longer a skeptic. The craft were extraterrestrial in origin, he told The Washington Post.

Now, in Ashburn on Jan. 3--just two weeks ago--a friend told me to watch WJLA Channel 7 news. I live near Ashburn, which is next to Dulles Airport, and I wasn't surprised when I saw the amateur video taken by an Ashburn resident. Whether these are extraterrestrial, I can't tell. But they sure like odd. Here's the link to the video that caught the latest Ashburn incident, and the latest that have occurred in places I've lived.

http://www.wjla.com/articles/2014/01/ufo-sighting-in-loudoun-county--98847.html

What then, does accepting that craft, not built by humans and most certainly not piloted by humans, have made themselves visible to so many human beings at once? Whatever beings are entering the world's airspace most certainly are more advanced, wouldn't you say? What is their intent? What are they saying with their in-your-face flying antics? What does it mean for us?
The most brazen activity occurs over military bases where nuclear weapons are deployed or stored. Are they putting their safety at risk (by coming so close to bases protected by fighter aircraft) because they're trying to figure out how to prevent humans from setting them off?

A former commander at Malstrom Air Force Base, a now-closed Minuteman missile complex in Montana (Think "The Day After") has been interviewed widely about what happened there. Robert Salas, deputy missile combat crew commander, was below ground in the complex when security guards on the surface called down to report orange flying discs hovering above the concrete lids that cover the missile silos.
Salas, who repeatedly has told his story publicly (and to superiors who investigated the incident) that the missiles, which are strung across the countryside for dozens of miles, went "offline" or became inoperable while the UFOs were overhead. This is a national security event of the highest order.  OK, incoming missiles would be worse.

Is there a message?

The silo guards--certainly not the kind of people who would make something up--honestly reported what they'd seen. These are people are vetted for security clearances that allow them near launch codes, firing pins, all the stuff of nightmares. In short, pretty reliable people.

Several of them reported seeing UFOs over the base.
Here's a document that shows the Air Force investigated the missile shutdowns and that UFOs were mentioned by these very serious people as one impossibility (by Air Force standards). The document indicates that Air Force investigators could find no radar image recordings or other electronic indication that something had been in the air over the base. That means they looked into the claims of topside security personnel.

http://www.cufon.org/cufon/malmstrom/page38.htm

Is this proof? Absolutely not. But what I can't shake is the number of highly responsible people who say these events occur.
The missile shutdown occurred in 1967. In the years since other base commanders have reported bizarre lights and strange solid objects over nuclear facilities around the United States and in England.
Salas said during an interview with the Discovery Channel that he believes his topside guards saw bizarre flying objects. He knows them, trained them, and as bizarre as it seems, he believes the craft were extraterrestrial in origin. He also believes whatever is showing up over military bases is trying tell us something.
What is that message?

"Get rid of your nukes," he said.
In the years since the Malstrom UFO incident, Salas went on to work for Martin-Marietta Aerospace, Rockwell International on Space Shuttle design proposals, and has held other top-security jobs.
I believe him.

Serial Burgler Still on the Job

Mikey Mo runs Key West 
burglar out of his house

John L. Guerra

As a homeowner described how he chased a serial burglar down the street in the middle of the night, police say they are doing everything they can to catch the intruder.

Michael Moschel, who owns Yukata Designs in Key West this week emailed neighbors--who also have been hit by the burglar--about his experience several weeks ago.
"Sometimes I love being an insomniac," wrote, Mikey Mo, Moschel's moniker. "Like the other night when I was in the living room channel surfing at 4:30 a.m. when I see this guy 10 feet away from me trying to break into our home.
"I was scared shitless. So I jumped up and screamed: 'You %#*& I will kill you!' So the guy bolts and I run after him. And the prick got away. Then I screamed at the top of my lungs in the middle of Angela Street at 4:32 a.m. 'I will kill you AGAIN you %#*&!'
"I was so infuriated and felt so violated and he never even got in the house. But what if I had not been up? As I am now at 4:17 a.m., waiting for him to return so I can kill him a third time."
In his email, Moschel urged neighbors, tongue-in-cheek, to ramp up their security systems:
"If by chance any of you in Old Town are sick and tired of this %^$# and want to line your yard with land mines, please let me know as I am tired of hearing about this guy who nobody, including the police have been able to catch."
When interviewed by KonkLife Saturday, Moschel said he was serious about the burglar's effect on he and his wife's sense of security. The event has made him examine the measures he's willing to take to protect his home and family. Killing the intruder could put him in legal trouble, he reasoned.
"I know for a fact you better be in fear of your life if you try to fight back," he said. "You'll be standing there and saying, 'Oh, that's the burglar that I killed.' You better have been clearly in fear of your life and raise the level of your anxiety to what you thought he was going to do to you."
Luckily, the burglar so far has run off when residents wake up to use the bathroom or step into the living room while he's going through their things. His decision to flee could change one night, and that's why police want residents to call as soon as they spot the intruder.
"We have stepped up patrols substantially in that neighborhood and our detectives are using every method they can to solve these crimes," said Alyson Crean, spokeswoman for the Key West Police."
Police are sticking close to the neighborhood for when the call comes, Crean said.
"Our response times are almost immediate, especially at that time [of the morning] and with the added intensity in that area because of the break-ins," she said.
In Moschel's case, Crean said, chasing the burglar was a natural reaction but calling police immediately is more effective.
"For all we know, an officer could have been around the corner and caught the suspect running away," she said.
Crean also repeated what police have been saying forever: Lock doors and windows. Many of the victim homes were unlocked, allowing the burglar easy entry. Since the burglaries began, many have begun locking their doors. Moschel is no exception, though he saw the burglar using something to pry his door open.
"I looked, and I see this guy trying to jimmy it open," he said. "I've since had the locks removed and had locks installed that need a combination," he said. "But if someone wants to get in, if he's walking into a bedroom where someone's sleeping, he's not only ballsy, he's got something to get into places."
Moschel said he couldn't describe much about the burglar--whom some theorize is a woman--because he was so shocked to see someone there. The culprit was only 10 feet away, using a tool to jimmy his wood door open.
"I was watching TV with no lights on and there were no lights on in my yard," he said. "He had a white T-shirt on, is about 5-feet, 10-inches tall, and had a medium build. It was definitely a man. The only thing I can say for sure was the white T-shirt."

 

JFK not buried alone on hill

Brother Bobby, McNamara, and Vietnam fallen surround him

By John L. Guerra

Last Sunday afternoon, as Key West rolled slowly toward a spectacular fall sunset, I stood on a high knoll over the west bank of the Potomac River. As the sun flung brilliance into the water of Key West Harbor, November in Arlington National Cemetery was as it always is. The big oaks, tall elms, beech and maples are nearly bare. They stand in place, guarding the endless rows of white headstones that carpet far hillsides in all directions. There is something about fallen leaves around a gravestone that murmurs immortality.

Though it's Sunday, the national military cemetery doesn't seem crowded; it can't. It is so broad and endless, this sea of tombstones, that ten thousand family members could search among the rows and there would still be silence.
It is five days before the 50th anniversary of JFK's public murder by rifle in Dallas. Born and raised in Washington, D.C., I have never been to his grave, never seen the Eternal Flame. I stand here now, though, with my back to the federal city built on the plain far below. The propane-fueled flame jutting from the flat, stone slabs of JFK's grave doesn't flicker. It burns strong. There is no hiss of gas.

The graves seem arranged not by name, but by historical relationship. His wife, Jacqueline, is on his right. On his left, the small stone flush with the ground is his son Patrick's marker. The newborn died August 7, 1963, about three months before his father's slaying.

JFK is not alone on the hill. Two hundred feet away on the same ridge his brother, Robert F. Kennedy, lays under a simple marble marker in the grass. Bobby grew tired of the war his brother had seeded and watered. Bobby gathered the anti-war forces during his 1968 campaign and promised to stop the killing. He was brought down, too.

Walk another 200 feet along the same ridge and a large, pink granite memorial stone marks the grave of JFK's defense secretary, Robert S. McNamara. McNamara's refusal to heed simple facts laid before him by American advisors in South Vietnam made unnecessary so many of the headstones on Arlington's grass sea. In his last years, McNamara laid his sins before America's feet and asked forgiveness.

I met a man. A greying executive haircut--a former infantry officer--but like everyone else breathing a little harder as we tackled the long walk up the hill to JFK's grave. His wife was with him on this walk, as she had been in spirit when he was in Bien Hoa, or My Tho, or Danang--wherever he had fought. She had welcomed him home when his war ended. With all the headstones, monuments, and somber statues to the slain in sight, she knew how kind fate had been. Her husband, instead of walking beside her today, could instead be buried under his own Pentagon-issued grave stone on this November hill.

"I know some guys who are buried here," the man said, answering my question. "I don't know how to find any of them."

I told him about the help desk in the visitor's center some distance behind us. You go up to the counter, you give them the name of the deceased, they look it up on the computer and draw a line on a map of the cemetery so you can find their sites.

"I should do that," he said. But in the meantime, we kept climbing the hill.

He had come to see JFK.