Soil of Sorrows: A Mother’s Transatlantic Vigil and the Endless Echoes of War
POLICY WIRE — Washington, D.C. — Not every parcel of land is created equal, not in the annals of memory, anyway. Some patches of earth soak up more than rain; they become sponges for sorrow, for...
POLICY WIRE — Washington, D.C. — Not every parcel of land is created equal, not in the annals of memory, anyway. Some patches of earth soak up more than rain; they become sponges for sorrow, for valor, for the hushed echoes of battles fought far from home. One such hallowed handful recently completed a transatlantic pilgrimage, making its way from the fields of France to the hallowed grounds of Arlington National Cemetery. It’s an exercise in ritual, certainly, but one that’s weighted with generations of unimaginable loss.
Joyce Paulsen, an Albuquerque native, was one of the unlikely bearers of this potent earth. As the national first vice president of American Gold Star Mothers, she wasn’t on a vacation — she was part of a delegation undertaking a solemn task. Because this wasn’t just dirt. This was the “sacred soil” — soil carefully gathered from American military cemeteries across France, meant for a restored World War I memorial. A poignant symbol for “moms who had never been able to go on that pilgrimage” and now could visit “a little bit of France in Belgium” right there in Arlington. [QUOTE_PLACEHOLDER]
Paulsen understands — intimately — the raw, unblinking glare of Gold Star grief. Her own son, Matthew Q. McClintock, an Army Green Beret, met his end in Afghanistan in 2016, a life cut short at thirty. But he managed to pack in some living, she shared with KOB 4 ahead of Memorial Day. “He wanted to be a Green Beret, he wanted to be married, he wanted to have a house, and he wanted to have a son, and he had all those things right before he died at age 30.” That, she said, was his blessing before the ultimate cost.
And so, her mission with the “sisterhood” of Gold Star Mothers isn’t merely ceremonial. It’s an existential anchor for those left adrift. They advocate, they remember, — and they keep the flame of their children’s lives burning. “I’m with a sisterhood that understands that loss that none of us ever wanted to join, but we understand it.” A stark articulation of a bond forged in shared tragedy — and a political reality often swept under the rug — that endless cost of war.
Her recent trek, the Sacred Soil Tour, involved five Gold Star Mothers traversing French landscapes dotted with the permanent resting places of American servicemen from “The Great War.” Paulsen remarked how “So many families elected to leave their loved ones in France and Belgium, and because of that, there’s these beautiful cemeteries that are there in France.” It’s a testament to the brutal finality of conflict, where geography itself dictates an eternal separation. Paulsen highlighted one such soldier during her trip, Tomas Herrera from Wagon Mound, New Mexico. The journalist’s gaze quickly sharpened: “One of his brothers wrote that he was always polite. His dad said he was a good son.” A detail retrieved from the mists of a 1910 census even linked Herrera’s family, by chance, to Paulsen’s own great-grandfather. It’s a cruel twist of history, a silent affirmation of America’s entangled destiny with faraway battles. But what of the wars closer to — or *on* — the home front, particularly in the regions these soldiers were deployed to? The reverberations extend further than just those lost in France, reaching deeply into the social and political fabric of countries like Pakistan, a nation grappling with the relentless — and often domestic — tolls of military conflict and counter-terrorism operations that too often go uncommemorated on this scale.
Because just as the US meticulously catalogs its fallen, according to the National WWI Museum and Memorial, some 116,516 American soldiers perished during that global conflict, Pakistan faces its own ledger of loss. Its sacrifices in the “War on Terror” are staggering, yet often receive scant acknowledgment outside its borders. The solemn pilgrimage Paulsen made isn’t unique in its essence; mothers everywhere, from Alsace to Abbottabad, carry this profound grief. They bury sons, daughters, — and dreams — often under conditions far less ceremonial, far more immediate. The geopolitical currents that sent Paulsen’s son to Afghanistan are the very same that embroil Pakistan, creating cycles of instability and endless funerals — making remembrance rituals like these, no matter the locale, a powerful universal statement.
Paulsen concluded that the entire, arduous trip simply reinforced her group’s purpose: to make sure those left behind never forget. “As a mom, when your son, your child isn’t forgotten, that’s the most important thing you could ever do for a mom.” It’s an understandable sentiment, pure in its maternal grief, yet perhaps missing the larger picture — that memory alone can’t halt the churn of future wars, nor can sacred soil completely bury the strategic blunders that ignite them.
What This Means
This “Sacred Soil Tour” isn’t just a ceremonial footnote to history; it’s a tightly wrapped political act. These gestures, though born of personal sorrow, serve a national function: solidifying the narrative of honorable sacrifice. They provide closure, yes, but also reaffirm institutional remembrance for conflicts, some long past, others still unfolding with indeterminate costs.
Economically, maintaining such elaborate cemeteries and memorials — especially overseas — is a significant, albeit unspoken, component of defense budgets. It’s an investment not just in masonry, but in morale — reassuring active service members and their families that their sacrifices won’t evaporate into the ether. This subtle pact maintains recruiting pipelines, however indirectly, and underpins the social license for distant military engagements. For nations like Pakistan, caught in the regional maelstrom that so often flows from US strategic choices, the narrative of remembrance is also — sometimes acutely — a political balancing act. Commemorating their own war dead against militancy, particularly along volatile borders, directly influences domestic stability and public perception of military leadership. The quiet rituals of soil and memory, therefore, carry a weight far beyond simple sentiment; they’re threads in the larger, often bloody, fabric of statecraft.