A Memorial Day Meditation on Honor

Back in 2014, I celebrated one of the most remarkable funerals of my 30+ years as a priest. With the body present, I sang a Requiem Mass for a man who died ten years before I was born. And his story speaks to the fallen soldiers we honor on this Memorial Day.

On January 1, 1951, Private First Class Arthur Richardson of A Company, 1st Battalion, 19th Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division went north with his platoon into what is now North Korea. The platoon was overtaken by a much larger group of North Korean soldiers and he was taken prisoner. This was the last that was heard of Pfc. Arthur Richardson. It was reported to his wife later that month that he was missing in action. In 1954, he was declared Killed in Action, though his body was not recovered and no definitive word had been received about him. He was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star.

It now seems certain that he died in or near a Prisoner of War camp in Suan since his remains were returned by North Korea in 1994, along with those of as many as 800 other American soldiers from that region. After years of painstaking work, the U.S. Army was recently able to definitively identify his remains using DNA evidence, and informed his family.

The family asked me if I would offer the old Latin Requiem Mass for him since this was the only form of the Mass he had ever known. And so on September 18, 2014, I had the great privilege of celebrating a Missa Cantata Requiem Mass. (See photo above).

The burial that followed at Arlington was with full military honors. (See left – click to enlarge)  Horses pulled the caisson that bore the body of Pfc Richardson and all were saddled, but the horses on the left had riders while those on the right did not. Also in the procession was a marching band, a group of about a dozen riflemen, a bugler, and the honor guard. It was a very moving sight. The band played “Soul of My Savior,” “Holy God, We Praise Thy Name,” “God of Our Fathers,” and “America.”