He walks around the freshly dug hole, beads of sweat gathering on his face and neck as the noon sun beats down.
In front of him, thousands of carved white stones cover the rolling hills. At his feet, Marteen El peers into the depths of the grave he’s helped prepare for a coming burial.
It’s serious work, but he and his colleagues try not to dwell on sadness.
“I try not to give it too much thought … I’ll become too emotional for it,” he said.
Most days Mr. El, 47, and eight other workers can be found cleaning the 120 acres at Chattanooga National Cemetery on Bailey Avenue. But at no time is the job more important than the weeks leading up to Memorial Day.
The men spend weeks laying sod, folding and unfurling flags, scrubbing headstones and shoveling earth to lay comrades to rest. Each has walked a similar path. All have served in the military, some for four years, others for decades, before finding their way to work at the cemetery.
And after the hundreds of cars that line the cemetery roads leave today, caretakers will fold the flags, scan the grass for trash and spot pieces of ground that need tending.
“In the wintertime, it’s gray, nothing growing,” said Britt Weise, 54. “It doesn’t pick up until May. That leaves three weeks to mow the grass, prune the shrubs, put sod on the graves.”
One of the newer members of the team, Bill Catoe, 28, said the work makes him think of friends, fellow Marines he served beside, some long gone.
“When you’re over there and a buddy gets killed, you ship them back,” he said. “You get to see the other end of it all here.”
Mondays and Fridays are busiest for the cemetery caretakers, sometimes with eight or even a dozen burials in one day.
There’s a cycle to the work, they said, more burials when it gets really cold or really hot.
Even with the ebb and flow, they stay focused on the details, the small ways to honor the dead veterans and families who grieve.
Foreman Bill Hartley, 47, listens intently to the stories of vets who come alone to visit graves or linger after a funeral service closes and the crowds slowly disappear.
“Being a veteran, you just feel like you’re part of a family,” he said. “They share their passion for their service to the country.”
They share stories, battle scars. He remembers the day a helicopter fell out of the Texas sky, crashing and killing a close friend.
“I know what the loved ones, friends, families are feeling,” he said. “I try to use that when I think of how my friend was taken so quick.”
After spending 22 years in the Air Force, Larry Houser, 63, came home to Chattanooga to work at a foundry before arriving to work at the cemetery. Like so many Chattanoogans, he has family buried here.
“There’s probably very few people born and raised here who don’t know someone or aren’t kin to someone buried here,” he said.
Mr. Houser knows the work that he and the caretakers do for others one day will be done for them. Walking the grounds, cleaning stones, being a guardian of peace and quiet in this place, is just as much for himself as it is for all the veterans.
“We all know that we’re going to wind up here or someplace like it someday,” he said. “I’d like to keep it that way, a nice place to visit the loved ones.”
PROGRAM TODAY
A Memorial Day service will be held at Chattanooga National Cemetery today at 11 a.m.
CHATTANOOGA NATIONAL CEMETERY FACTS
* Opened in 1867 to bury Civil War dead
* 120 acres
* 48,000 buried
* 41,000 plots used
* 12,000 unidentified veterans from Civil War
* 1,100 average number of burials annually
Source: Chattanooga National Cemetery
MEMORIAL DAY HISTORY
On May 5, 1868, three years after the Civil War ended, the head of an organization of Union veterans — the Grand Army of the Republic — established Decoration Day as a time for the nation to decorate the graves of the war dead with flowers. Maj. Gen. John A. Logan declared Decoration Day should be observed on May 30, and it is believed that date was chosen because flowers would be in bloom all over the country. The first large observance was held that year at Arlington National Cemetery, across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. The ceremonies centered on the mourning-draped veranda of the Arlington mansion, once the home of Gen. Robert E. Lee. Various Washington officials, including Gen. and Mrs. Ulysses S. Grant, presided over the ceremonies. After speeches, children from the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Orphan Home and members of the Grand Army of the Republic made their way through the cemetery, strewing flowers on both Union and Confederate graves, reciting prayers and singing hymns.
Source: U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
CEMETERY CARETAKERS
* Larry Houser, 63
22 years in the U.S. Air Force
Started at the cemetery in 2002
* Bill Hartley, 47
Nine years in the U.S. Army
Started in the National Cemetery Administration in 2002, came to Chattanooga in 2007
* Britt Weise, 54
Four years in the U.S. Army
Started at the cemetery in 2004
* Bill Sachse, 50
26 years in the U.S. Air Force
Started at the cemetery in 2009
* Marteen El, 47
Nine years in the U.S. Navy
Started at the cemetery in 2009
* Tito Mineno, 39
Eight years in the U.S. Army
Started at the cemetery in 2000
* Greg Courtney, 44
Six years in the U.S. Army
Started at the cemetery in 2003
* Mike Springfield, 48
Eight years in the U.S. Coast Guard
Started at the cemetery in 2001
* Bill Catoe, 28
Four years in the U.S. Marine Corps
Started at the cemetery in 2008
* Paul Martin, 59, cemetery director
Eight years in the U.S. Army
Spent 25 years with the National Cemetery Administration
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