Manila American Cemetery Memorial Day

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We enjoyed the Memorial Day weekend in Manila. The Manila American Cemetery and Memorial is located in Fort Bonifacio, a subsection of Metro Manila. There were a couple of special events held there for Memorial Day. This remembrance is produced by the Embassy of the United States and the American Association of the Philippines.

The cemetery site, 152 acres of gently rising ground contains the largest number of graves for U.S. military dead of Word War II. The grave area is divided into 11 curved plots forming concentric bands around the high ground where the memorial stands. There are more than 17,000 graves. Going out in a semicircle from the memorial building there are 25 tall rectangular piers. On these huge slabs of marble are inscribed the names of 36,282 soldiers (someone told us) who are missing and who rest in unknown graves. Seventeen thousand graves and 36,000 missing.


On Saturday, we got up early and drove down there — about 10 kilometers. We had volunteered to help place flags at the cross of each grave. There is a system worked out. One person uses a jig that measures the exact position of the flags (an American flag and a Philippines flag at each grave), and when you step on it, it punches two holes in the ground. Another person (sometimes two others) place the flag stick into the holes. Then on to the next. We didn’t count the number we did, but it was easily 300 to 400.

Sister Roundy is running the machinery. (The camera case was in the way, so she soon turned the jigging over to Elder Roundy.) Sister Alexander is going to put the flags in the holes that the jig punches.

This is Sister Roundy using the hole-punching jig, Sister Alexander (in red) and Sister Dayes are waiting to plant the flags. Sister Alexander is the medical adviser's wife and Sister Dayes is the nurse at the Missionary Training Center.

Someone earlier had placed two flags on the top of the cross, so the system was easy and efficient. Some 150 acres of flag draped crosses. As he went along punching the holes, Elder Roundy would read aloud the name of each soldier and where he was from. We saw some from all over the United States, however, in our section we did not see a grave for anyone from Nevada.

This was an enjoyable experience. Probably 12 senior missionary couples came (so this picture is not of all who were there.) And there were many others — military men, other volunteers, even a troop of Boy Scouts of America (for American boys living in the Philippines). Here you see the flags in front of the crosses.

On Sunday we returned to the Memorial where they had tents set up and enjoyed a dignified and impressive memorial service. There were a lot of people there. We saw the U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines (Kristie A. Kenny) and a number of other Filipino dignitaries. The American Marine Corps and Philippine Army made a beautiful presentation of the colors with the Philippine Army Band playing the national anthems for both countries. The reverend gave a decent opening (and closing) prayer — completely within the mores of an LDS service (although the event, as you would suspect, was entirely nondenominational). Ambassador Kenny spoke, the Philippines Secretary of Defense spoke. Wreaths of flowers were presented by various organizations. It lasted almost an hour.

This shows how the whole 36,000 graves were decorated with the two flags looked when we went back Sunday morning. Row upon row. Completely around the Memorial semicircle. (The skyscrapers in the back are downtown Makati.)

This was the prettiest girl at the whole show. One of the stake president's wife gave the pearls to Sister Roundy as a gift. She gave her a necklace and bracelet to match.

We were under a tent, so we couldn't get good pictures of the ceremony. These are the American Marines and the Philippines Army Soldiers presenting the colors.

This is the Ambassador from the United States of America, Kristie A. Kenny. The speech she gave was short and elegant. She wasn't.

Then, almost on cue, when the ceremony was over and we had walked to our car, the rain came down — heavy, hard, a deluge. Literally, we climbed in dry; shut the car door, and sha-zam, it started to rain.

We drove to an LDS chapel not too far away to attend Church services. We enjoyed the services because all was in English. The chapel was right in the middle of downtown Makati. Tall skyscrapers all around, almost like downtown Manhattan. We were told the chapel was the first Mormon chapel built in the Philippines after World War II. It was a nice one-story chapel with a typical, but not too tall steeple. And when they built it back in the 50s, they had to get a variance because of the tall steeple. We laughed about that, because on all four sides are these enormous buildings scraping the clouds.

A Big Fish in a Little Pond

Just outside our door, on our way up the stairs to the Temple parking lot we pass by a water garden. It's a pretty spot. There are plants and waterfalls and several little ponds. In the one larger pond lives this goldfish (well, mostly gold, but all fish). His name is Gary Goldfish. (Or if needs be, we can change it to Gertrude Goldfish, but who knows and how could we tell? I doubt even he knows.) He spends his whole time swimming back and forth in this meager world. He sometimes slips under the rocks, sometimes rests on the bottom, mostly leisurely gliding back and forth, hardly moving. But it's his world, it's all he knows, and he seems sufficiently content.

He has no friends. He's alone. But he doesn't know that. There are neighbors in the otherponds, small, frisky guys. Poor Gary is alone. He doesn't know about them. Probably he doesn't know about anywhere beyond his small, mossy pond. He seems to know when you approach, so sometimes he comes up and sticks his nose out of the water. Could be he's smelling, or it may be he actually can see you.

Gary's probably 15 inches long. Seems pretty big for the size of his pond. Who knows what he eats? Maybe the gardner feeds him, but there are plenty of insects and worms around, and it doesn't look like he's missed too many lunches.

Wonder how old Gary is. How long has he been there? What does he think about? Everybody likes him, but he has no concept of affection, I suppose. Jesus loves him.