From the archives, a piece appropriate for the moment, Unknown Soldiers:

I think I was first introduced to this monument some time in early grade school, perhaps as early as 1976, when the country was going bananas over the bicentennial and you couldn't even see through all the red-white-and-blue bunting. Even though I was only 8, it was easy to take to heart the somber, serious attitude of the thing. You knew immediately just by looking at it that it was important.

The problem I had was that nobody could really explain to me why it was so important...