Concordia And Fort Bliss Cemeteries - Grave Visits

Cemeteries.

I just can’t stay away from ‘em, and especially when I am on the road, this time in El Paso, Texas.

The Moon Handbooks guide has this cemetery promotion: “Concordia’s most famous resident is John Wesley Hardin, who felled more men than Billy the Kid and Jesse James combined and is said to have been the fastest gun in the West.”

Even if you’re not a special fan of graveyards can you pass by Concordia knowing that such a character is buried there?

Well, don’t, because there is also much more to see.

As I turn in and go through the entrance gate what first strikes me is the dry, desert environment and the barren gravesites. Frankly, the first graves I see to the right are sad and pitiable. One appears as only a mound of dirt on-grade with a small red, artificial flowers “Mom” that sits on top of it. It is as if the mother died in her back yard while hanging laundry to dry, the family had no money for a funeral, and all that was available was one small shovel!

A bit farther in are four rows of soldiers, their crosses as neat and polished in death as the men were in life. The stone pedestal in front of them, standing at attention like their commanding officer, says simply, “Buffalo Soldiers.”

I can’t explain how I have read American History without discovering these guys. They were the all-black Ninth and Tenth U.S. Cavalry units that “….played a big part in making the West safe for pioneers [and] ….became known for a number of heroic acts and for their pride.” They got their name “buffalo soldiers” from “…Indians because their hair resembled that of their sacred buffalo.”

It is also reported that “Their motto, ‘Ready and Forward,’ fit them well, for the Indians respected and feared them.”Counting the crosses, twenty-eight of them are interred here as brothers forever.

[As a pure coincidence, a few days later while in the West of the Pecos Museum in Pecos City, Texas, in a second-floor display, I encountered one of the most distinguished of the Buffalo Soldiers: Lieutenant Henry O. Flipper. In fact, the quotes used here have been taken from an essay by David Edmond Hilton, bought at the Museum, detailing the life and times of Lieutenant Flipper who was West Point’s first black graduate and the American Frontier’s first black officer. For reference we are talking about the 1870’s and 1880’s. By the way, Flipper is not buried at Concordia, but is in Georgia.]

Next, going west about a hundred yards, just in front of the enclosed Chinese Section - which Nature has begun to reclaim – I come upon the gunslinger Hardin’s resting place. His grave has been given a very recent makeover by someone or group: it is now enclosed by a well-made, locked, iron-cage house. Ironically or perhaps fittingly, when the sun rises on it a pattern of shadows resembling the bars of a jail incarcerates the headstone and grave.

Before I leave I also find Mormon plots, a self-described “Polish Cowboy,” two weathered burials of Texas Rangers, and a well-maintained cradle located aside the treed oasis straight-in from the main entrance.

My only scheduled cemetery visit concluded, I leave with an intention to visit the military museums at nearby Fort Bliss. But, unknown to me beforehand, I see a Fort Bliss Cemetery sign, so my truck is unable to do anything but turn in. This hallowed ground is the other extreme from Concordia: meticulously landscaped and cared for it is populated exclusively with U.S. Military war dead and their spouses.

[Why do we become silent when entering a cemetery? Is it from being taught respect for the dead, or is it out of fear of the unknown and our own demise?]

The first in one of the perfect rows of thin white head stones names a wife who preceded her military husband in death by thirty years. (Imagine loving someone so much that the two of you will be side-by-side in eternity.)Another, but larger, headstone at the back of a gazebo is from the Viet Nam War. It is a USAF Captain awarded the Silver Star and Distinguished Flying Cross, buried with a “Laotian National.” They died on the same day: August 18, 1969.

A nearby stone marker has been placed by Lone Star Chapter 393 of the Order of the Purple Heart. Its’ inscription reads:

“Dedicated to the memory of the brave men and women of our Armed Forces who were wounded or killed in combat against an enemy of our country.”

As I drive away and think about both cemeteries I can’t help but ask myself: despite the relentless evolution of our species, will the need for war ever become extinct?

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