Arlington Ladies Honor Those Who Served, Military Grief and Loss

Authored by aarp.org and submitted by NachoBeach
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Ladies wear name badges and have a military escort. Each group has its own rules. For example, Navy Ladies also attend funerals of spouses of living servicemen and veterans.

"We're not there as a sympathizer or mourner" but as a witness, says Nancy Reed, cochair of the Air Force group.

Paula McKinley, an Arlington Lady for 25 years and chair of the Navy group, calls their participation "a team effort."

Joyce Johnson became an Army Arlington Lady four years after her husband, Dennis, 48, was killed on 9/11 in the attack on the Pentagon and buried at Arlington. "We do it from our hearts," she says. "My heart breaks at every funeral."

One unwritten rule applies to all Arlington Ladies: They don't cry. Ever. "Once in a while you come close to tears — when it's a young active-duty soldier, a young widow and young kids," Mensch says. "But you don't cry."

Marsha Mercer is an independent journalist in Northern Virginia.

ErieSpirit on March 4th, 2018 at 21:15 UTC »

I don't know about them attending the actual burial service, but when we buried my father at ANC they helped facilitate things at the center the family meets at ahead of time. They coordinated the room for the family to meet in, gave us a heads up on the process, and led us by car to the burial site. At that time they left us, and did not attend the actual burial ceremony. Very helpful indeed, but did not attend the burial.

BearFLSTS on March 4th, 2018 at 19:55 UTC »

Exactly correct. The PGR started as a group of vets who rode and decided to attend a military funeral where the Westboro Church planned to protest. The vets used flags to block the Westboro creeps from the view of the family and when Westboro started chanting the vets started singing the National Anthem to drown them out. They promote non violent protection and support of the families of our lost heroes.

NachoBeach on March 4th, 2018 at 16:30 UTC »

I also found out there are other groups of ladies that do the same thing at National Cemeteries around the United States. My mother does so in Jacksonville, FL.