Soldier's Burial

John Rice, a Winnebago whose Indian name is Walking in Blue Sky, loved his native land and was more than willing to fight for it. He enlisted in the Army shortly after Pearl Harbor, served 40 months in the Pacific. There, as a doughboy in the 32nd Infantry Division, he was wounded in battle, contracted malaria, won the Bronze Star. After the war, he went back to the reservation at Winnebago, Neb., but soon re-enlisted as a Regular Army man. Last September, serving as a rifleman with the ist Cavalry Division above Taegu in Korea, Sergeant John Rice, 37, was killed in action.

He had always said he wanted to be buried in a military cemetery, so his widow Evelyn bought a lot in the military section of the Memorial Park Cemetery, 25 miles from Winnebago, outside Sioux City, la. Last week, John Rice's funeral procession rolled through the undulating corn country from Winnebago to Sioux City. At the grave an American Legion firing squad fired the traditional three volleys of the military burial service. The service ended when Evelyn Rice was given the flag that had draped her husband's coffin.

But after all the mourners had gone, a cemetery official asked a strange question: "Was that boy an Indian?" While the coffin still rested above the grave, he explained that the cemetery articles of incorporation restrict it to "members of the Caucasian race." The body was taken back to the mortuary.

The undertaker went to the weather-beaten farmhouse where Evelyn Rice lives. She had been composed at the grave, but now she could not hold back the tears. "Why?" she sobbed. With her three small children around her, John Rice's widow tried to decide what to do.

Early next morning the President of the U.S. solved her problems. Harry Truman read the news story of what had happened, ordered a wire sent off to Sioux City: "Please advise the family of Sergeant John R. Rice that arrangements for burial in Arlington Cemetery have been authorized. The President feels that the national appreciation of patriotic sacrifice should not be limited by race, color or creed."

This week a U.S. military plane will take Mrs. Rice to Washington for her husband's second funeral. Walking in Blue Sky will be buried with full military honors in Arlington National Cemetery, where the color of a soldier's skin no longer* makes a difference.

* Segregation in Arlington and other national cemeteries was abolished in 1947.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.