Larry Who? An Unexpected Arlington Cemetery Story

photo by Lauren Kahn

Arlington Cemetery is full of stories.  There are over 320,000 people buried there and you cannot help but be moved by a visit.  Sometimes you ask a question and you get an answer totally different from what you expected.  That is how I found out about Larry Thorne.

I was preparing to do a tour for a group of Finnish people.  I knew there was a grave near the Kennedy gravesite for Konstant Niemi which listed his place of birth (rather than one of the United States) as “Finland”.  I wanted to know more about him.  So, one day, I typed in “Finns buried in Arlington Cemetery” into google search.  I never found out anything about Niemi, but this amazing story about Larry Thorne came up.  He is known as the only soldier buried in Arlington who fought for 3 different countries.

Larry Thorne, who anglicized his name when he immigrated to the US, was born Lori Torni in Viipuri, Finland, on May 28, 1919.  During World War II, he fought for the Finns against Russia, when the Finns invaded the Finnish province of Karelia.  Viipuri is part of Karelia.  He enlisted in 1938.  Larry Thorne lost his home—as did many Finns--when the province of Karelia was eaten up by the Russians at the end of the Winter War (you know, the one where the Finns fought on skis).  There was massive population displacement as all the Finns fled to Finland rather than be absorbed into Russia.  It's a sore point in Finland to this day.  Viipuri, by the way, is now known as Vyborg.  Finns visit it to touch base with where their ancestors lived with great sadness.

Larry Thorne fought the Russians in the Winter War, initially as an enlisted man.  He was such a good soldier that he was eventually commissioned a lieutenant.  He continued to fight the Russians in what the Finns call the Continuation War from 1941-1944 with the Waffen SS.  Finland, by the way, ended up on the German side in World War II.  They didn’t much like the Germans, but they disliked the Russians more.

At the end of World War II, Thorne had a difficult time.  He was incarcerated for joining the Germans, but was pardoned in 1946.  The Finns had a difficult time sort of dealing with war guilt after it was over, but, they shouldn’t have blamed themselves.  There are currently just a little over 5.2 million Finns.  How could they fight either Russia or Germany and win?  They have repeatedly been squeezed between major powers. Their survival is a heroic story.  So is the story of their language—which is viewed as distantly related to Mongolian.

Thorne found post war work eventually as a seaman, but, in 1953, jumped ship and immigrated to he US landing in New York City.  In 1954 he enlisted in the US Army—a path followed by other Finnish officers who fought for the Germans in the Continuation War.  In 1960 he became a Captain in the US Army despite difficulties with the English language which dogged him throughout his time in the US.  He joined the Special Forces and was regarded as a soldier’s soldier. Then came the Vietnam War and Thorne was sent to Vietnam.  On October 18, 1965, he left for a clandestine mission in Laos.  He never returned, but it was known that he had perished because the remains of the helicopter in which he had been a passenger were found.

In 1999 Larry Thorne’s body was at long last buried in Arlington Cemetery together with some South Vietnamese soldiers who died with him.  The remains were scant and the families chose to mingle them together in the grave just as they had perished.  That’s why the tombstone is larger. Thorne is buried in Section 60, grave number 8136.  He was laid to rest on June 26, 2003.  He received a posthumous promotion to major.

Before doing my tour with the Finns, I went to visit Thorne’s tombstone to see if there was any way I could do the site in the tour.  I couldn’t because there was insufficient time.  I pointed out Niemi’s grave as we walked up to see the Kennedy brothers.  When I started to speak about Thorne, they all said, “Oh, Lori Torni.”  They all knew the story.

Thorne’s name is on panel 2E of the Vietnam Wall.  The people in the tour group photographed it.

Who knew?  And who else is buried in Arlington Cemetery who we have forgotten?  In Finland, Thorne was once voted #52 in a survey of the most famous Finns.  He fought for three countries and found his resting place among Arlington’s many heros.

You Don't Have To Eat Chinese! Christmas Day in DC

So, you are in DC on Christmas Day and everything is oh so silent (during the day too--not just at night), but do not despair, we at DC Like a Local have some suggestions for you.

If you have a car, enjoy the free and abundant parking downtown.  Yeah, Christmas is the one day of the year the Smithsonian is closed—which might account for the abundant parking—but enjoy parking without having to have a roll of quarters ever present or paying for parking via those annoying ticket machines.  Ugh!

We are going to assume that you are reading this because you do not want to do the religion thing.  If you wanted to do the religion thing, you would just go to church.  Here we look for things you could do that do not involve church services.

First of all, the monuments do not close.  No, neither the Tourmobile nor any of the other tour companies running tours to the monuments will be operating, but get yourself a good pair of shoes and walk it.  Don’t tell anyone, but you could be standing in front of Lincoln without the maddening hordes just gazing up at Daniel Chester French’s statue by your lonesome.  In the evening, check out the National Christmas Tree on the South Side of the White House (the side that faces Constitution Avenue, NW, behind the Treasury).  Unfortunately, the seasonal entertainment wraps up(pdf) on the evening of December 23^rd, but the tree will still be up and lit for you to enjoy.  You could even take your photo among all the Christmas lights.

If you’ve done the monuments and/or don’t fancy walking all over the Mall, Arlington Cemetery is open 365 days a year.  The Tourmobile will not be running, but the guard at the Tomb of the Unknowns will still change every hour on the hour and walking up there is not so bad if you take your time.  The Tomb Guards do that 24/7. Christmas does not stop the show.  Before or after the Changing of the Guard, stop by the Kennedy graves.  You will see where Edward Kennedy was recently buried next to his brothers John and Robert.  It is recommended that you take the Metro; the subway will be on a holiday schedule, so allow extra time.

Hands down favorite for me, however, on Christmas Day is Mount Vernon.  Yes, Mount Vernon is open 365 days a year.  For some families a Christmas Day visit there is annual tradition.  According to the website, the National Treasure tour should even be up and running for Christmas Day (you see areas where the popular film was made).  As usual during the holidays, the rarely seen third floor of the mansion will be open to visitors.  Unlike The Smithsonian (where you don’t have to pay to get in because you’ve already paid on April 15^th), Mount Vernon is privately run and you must pay an admission fee. Mount Vernon is open 9:00am to 4:00pm Christmas Day on its regular winter schedule. 

If you want to have a more relaxing day, there is always the “Jewish” solution to Christmas—eat Chinese and see a film—you can do that as well. DC has a small Chinatown on H Street, NW, between 5^th and 8^th Streets, NW, and H and I Streets, NW.  No, it is nothing like Chinatown in San Francisco, but DC does have the world’s largest Chinese Arch.  Have the kids count the dragons on the arch; there are 272 of them.  So what if they get the number wrong, the purpose is to amuse them, right? Then go get a bite to eat in one of the area’s many Chinese restaurants.

At 604 H Street, NW, in Chinatown take a look at the plaque outside the building.  In the 19th century it was the Mary Surrat boarding house--where the Lincoln assassination was planned.  Yes, it's open to the public, but only if you want Chinese food.  It has morphed into a Chinese carry out called the Wok 'n' Roll.  Great name!

Before or after your Chinese meal, drop into Landmark E Street Cinema, 555 11^th Street, NW (despite the address actually on E Street between 10^th and 11^th Street, NW).  The Landmark shows a lot of independent and foreign films.

Of course, there is nothing to prevent you from spending a nice relaxing day at home on Christmas preparing for the sales on the day after Christmas!

A Good Day at Arlington

It's easy to get wrapped up in executing an itinerary as a tour guide, and forget to take advantage of the unique opportunities of experiencing all that Washington has to offer in person. After all, the information I give can be easily found in books, on the web, and in countless free pamphlets. Everything you will see on a trip to DC has been photographed several hundred times, probably in the last week alone. So why come in person?

Besides the thrill of seeing it on your own, the answer is simple: sometimes you're plans will go out the window and you will see something really cool. Maybe a Presidential motorcade. Maybe a really good protest (nothing beats seeing the anti-circumcision folks out with their "Don't Snip the Tip" signs). For a group of seventh graders and myself this Tuesday it was a wreath laying at Arlington Cemetery.

We had our own wreath laying scheduled for 10:15, when we got unceremoniously bumped. It would be the last unceremonial thing we would see for the next hour or so. We were fortunate enough to get to witness the full military honors associated with a wreath laying by a visiting Australian General.

It's an impressive ceremony, much more elaborate than the normal laying of a wreath which happens several times a day. We got to see the full honor guard marching up the steps; the band, Pershing's Own, playing both the Australian and American National Anthems; the presenting of the colors; and finally, the laying of the wreath by the Australian General. More pictures, and an amateurishly shot video are available on my flickr photostream.

It knocked us back an hour, which in tour guide time is several days, but fortunately, my blown schedule was helped by two things: it's fall and I was working with a particularly great set of seventh graders and their parents who appreciated the experience, even at the cost of missing out at a few things downstream. After all, as one parent told me, the Smithsonian will still be there next time they come back.

Which I think was a valuable lesson for me as well. A visit to DC isn't a checklist of items to see. Don't be afraid to sacrifice a few things off your list in order to focus a little more on the quality of the experience. And for those of you looking to visit, I'd suggest two things: develop a plan before you come and ignore it as necessary when you get here.

The Kennedy Curse Continues

Once I've taken visitors to the various Kennedy grave sites, an inevitable question arises: Where's John John buried? Why is he not with his father?

Those of you who read my discussion of President Kennedy's grave, may remember that although the site work was paid for by the Kennedy family and the 3.2 acres is dedicated to his remembrance, the plot remains the property of the U.S. Government and part of Arlington National Cemetery. As such, JFK, Jr. would have had to meet the eligibility requirements on his own to be buried with his parents, and as he was not a minor child nor a permanently dependent one, he would not have, much less his wife and her sister, who both died with him in a plane crash off Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts on July 16th, 1999. While certainly the Kennedy family could have asked for an exemption, it doesn't appear that this was ever considered.

So, now that Arlington was out, the Kennedy and Bessette families were faced with a new problem. Part of the attraction that Arlington Cemetery has for high profile burials is the idea that as it is directly controlled by the military, a sense of decorum will be preserved. As it is today. Millions of visitors have come by the Kennedy graves, thousands with me alone, and everyone from cemetery officials, security guards, tour guides, teachers, parents, and (sometimes) school kids keeps this in mind when they visit. Jackie was very wise to give her husband to the people; it relieved the family from what would have been an incredible logistical challenge: keeping her husbands grave secure and respected.

And in many ways, that's what the Kennedy family faced again. Without the U.S. Army guarding it, how would John F. Kennedy, Jr's grave remain untrammeled by thousand of well wishing but overwhelming visitors? Sometimes it's good to be the king, and if the family faced a unique problem, they were capable of unique solutions. Sen. Edward Kennedy reached out to the Defense Department and asked for a favor; a burial at sea. In of itself, unremarkable, the Navy handles thousands of these a year, the circumstances certainly were in this case. Even though JFK Jr had no military experience, a provision exists for for non-veterans who have made notable or outstanding contributions to the United States, as was ruled the case here.

And so the USS Briscoe was dispatched from Norfolk, Virginia to host members of the Kennedy and Bessette families to say good by to their loved ones. Although the Navy handled much of the details, the service was not a military one and did not include the traditional trappings such a the three round volley or the playing of taps that accompanies military and navel funerals. The family committed to the deep, to use the appropriate terminology, the remains of Kennedy and his wife and sister in law.

I myself reported aboard the good ship Briscoe a few months after the funeral, where stories abounded of the event. Someday, I might share some of them with you, but for now let me note on bit of the aftermath that followed the burial.

While, the burial was in keeping with regulations, the speed in which it was carried out bothered the families of many veterans whose remains had yet to be buried. As they had a good point, the Navy sought to clear the backlog as rapidly as possible, so we spent a good portion of 2000 bringing the ship to bare steerage way, donning our whites, and sending many old salts to the briny deep. It was a fun time to be the roommate of the burial officer, and we shared our stateroom had many new residents taking their last sea cruise until we could work through the backlog.

So, back to Arlington Cemetery, how do I answer the question? I normally hold off until walking back from the Tomb of the Unknowns along Roosevelt Drive. Just after you pass McClellan Drive on the left is the grave of Admiral Briscoe, pictured below. He is the namesake of the ship that buried John John, buried himself here at Arlington.

Robert Joins His Brother

In a story replete with tragic irony, the speech Robert Kennedy gave the day Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated stands out even so. It fell to Robert to break the news to a crowd in a predominately black Indianapolis neighborhood that Dr. King was dead. Quoting from the Greek playwright Aeschylus, Robert acknowledged the crowds anger and added, in a rare personal confession, that he had felt the same at his brother's death. Perhaps in no small part to Kennedy's eloquence and empathy, Indianapolis was spared the violence that tormented so many other American cities that night.

Little did he or the crowd know that in many ways he was writing his own epitaph. In barely two months, Sen. Robert Kennedy would also fall to an assassin's bullet, just as his Presidential campaign was gathering steam. Like his brother's death five years before, plans for his death were hurriedly put together in the midst of the nation's grief.

If they had thought of it before, the Kennedy family had assumed Robert would be buried in Massachusetts. However, with his brother resting in Arlington, the consensus was not to separate the two brothers in death. Robert had briefly enlisted as a Seaman Apprentice in the Navy in 1943, where he served on the destroyer USS Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., named for his oldest brother who had died in World War II. As a military veteran, as well as a member of Congress and former Attorney General, he was eligible for internment in Arlington.

Despite the military nature of his final resting place, Robert's wife Ethel asked that his funeral and accompanying events be without the trappings of military ceremonies. This was in stark contrast to the heavily military state funeral of President Kennedy. The only request made by the family, other than the location of the grave, was for a honor guard of Special Forces soldiers to be provided at the funeral in St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York. The Kennedy's had shared a special relationship with the Special Forces community, and it had been John who had authorized the distinctive green berets to be worn, which up to that point had been frowned upon officially. Special Forces soldiers had been highly visible at his funeral, and the 1st Special Forces Group had added a black border to it's yellow flash in recognition of the President's assassination.

Following the funeral in New York, the intention was for a special train to take the Senator's remains to DC and, ultimately, Arlington National Cemetery. However, due to the large number of mourners lining the railroad right of way, the train did not arrive until 9:09 pm at Union Station. Following a precession that stopped briefly at the Department of Justice (recently renamed for RFK) and the Lincoln Memorial, the procession arrived late in the evening at the Cemetery. Using candles rushed over from Ft. Myer's and St. Matthew's Cathedral, the family, close aides, and friends of laid Robert to rest a hundred feet from his brother. It was perhaps the most unique funeral ever at Arlington, with a minimum of military trappings, the only one held at night, and with the Harvard University Band playing "America the Beautiful".

The uniqueness of the ceremony was carried over into the design of the grave. Per the request of his family, Robert Kennedy is marked not by a grave of stone or bronze, but by a white painted wooden cross and a simple stone foot stone, engraved only with his name and his years of birth and death. I'm used to saying that it's the only wooden marker here in Arlington, but as of five days ago, I'm no longer correct.

As with his brother, with the luxury of time, the grave site was enlarged, with a granite plaza providing a viewing area. The work was designed by the firm of I.M. Pei, whose known for, among many other things, the design of the East Wing of the National Gallery of Art. The design retains the simplicity of the white wooden cross, but adds a somber water feature, as well as inscriptions from RFK's speeches, including the landmark one in Indianapolis, given just two months before he came here.