tomb of the unknown soldier

tomb of the unknown soldier

ARLINGTON, Va. —The recently elected and sworn in president, the ever first black president to enter white house, President Obama observed Memorial Day on Monday just as his predecessors have: by placing a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier here. But Mr. Obama added a new twist: he sent a second wreath to a memorial honoring African-Americans who fought in the Civil War.

Presidents since Warren G. Harding have marked Memorial Day by visiting Arlington National Cemetery, where white rows of tombstones mark more than seven generations of America’s war dead. But with the nation’s first African-American president in office, a controversy erupted over Mr. Obama’s appearance this year.

Last week, a group of university professors petitioned the White House to end a longstanding practice of sending a wreath to a monument to Confederate soldiers on the cemetery grounds. Mr. Obama continued that tradition but started another, the White House said, by sending a second wreath across the Potomac River to the historically black neighborhood in Washington where the African-American Civil War Memorial commemorates more than 200,000 blacks who fought for the North in the Civil War.

A 21-gun salute, the honor accorded all heads of state, greeted Mr. Obama upon his arrival here. After placing the wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns, the president delivered a 12-minute speech in which he paid tribute to “those who paid the ultimate price so that we may know freedom.”

Mr. Obama did not mention the wreath-laying controversy in his remarks in the soaring marble columned coliseum. Instead, he asked all Americans to pause at 3 p.m. on Monday for a moment of remembrance. And he addressed head-on his own lack of military service, in one of the few passages that brought applause from the crowd.

“My grandfather served in Patton’s army in World War II; I cannot know what it is like to walk into battle,” the president said. “I’m the father of two young girls, but I can’t imagine what it is like to lose a child. These are things I cannot know. But I do know this: I am humbled to be the commander-in-chief of the finest fighting force in the history of the world.”