redbloodedamerica:

The Story Behind the Cross Deemed Unconstitutional

Because
the cross-shaped Bladensburg World War I  Veteran’s Memorial, erected in 1925
to remember 49 men from Prince George’s County, Maryland, now sits on a tiny
patch of government grass.  A panel of judges from the US Court of Appeals for
the Fourth Circuit declared it unconstitutional.  Unless the Supreme Court of the
United States intervenes, this gravestone to 49 men who fell in the service of
freedom may be destroyed. 

Imagine what the family of Milton Edward Hartman
would say.  He was only a corporal in 1918 when he was killed in action.  So, you’d
think his memorial service would maybe draw a small gathering of family and
friends.  But in the summer of 1919 at the service for Corporal Hartman, they say
it looked like half the population of Forestville, Maryland showed up.  His
commanding officer was there.  The bishop of Washington was there.  One reporter
said the people “thronged the church and filled the courtyard 10 feet deep.”  They
listened through doors and open windows.  

But Corporal Hartman’s body was not there.  He was buried nearly 4,000 miles away in an American cemetery on European soil.  The marker over his grave: a simple cross with his dog tag.  Because so many soldiers
from Prince George’s County Maryland were buried in Europe, their Gold Star
Mothers wanted something nearby to help people remember.  So they hired an
architect and designed a cross-shaped memorial – a shape that echoed the grave
markers dotting the French countryside.  In 1925, the mothers and the American
Legion dedicated the Bladensburg World War I Veteran’s Memorial.  The large
plaque on the base still bears the names of their sons, including Corporal
Hartman.  Martha Redmond said she considered it to be her son William’s “gravestone.”  

For nearly a hundred years, it has quietly reminded everyone who drives by of
49 men from Prince George’s County, Maryland who made the ultimate sacrifice.  It
was originally built on private land, but the government claimed the property
when it expanded the adjacent highway.  Still a three-judge panel of the Fourth
Circuit ruled that the memorial is unconstitutional.  One judge on the Fourth
Circuit who disagreed with his colleagues decision wrote: “The dead cannot speak
for themselves.  But may the living hear their silence.”  As another judge said, the decision
by the Fourth Circuit “puts at risk hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of similar
monuments.”  

What monuments?  Well, less than 10 miles from Bladensburg sits
Arlington National Cemetery.  Unless the Supreme Court takes action, the Canadian
Cross of Sacrifice, the Argonne Cross, and others could face demolition as well.  And that would be just the beginning of the desecration of memorials all across
America.  

The people who stood 10 feet deep in the churchyard on that muggy
summer day at Corporal Hartman’s memorial service would surely be shocked at that
desecration.  They understood that memorials to the dead are reminders to the
living of service and sacrifice.  They would stand with the American Legion and
against those who had erased the memory of the fallen 49.  Will you?