A proper burial, finally, for a sailor killed at Pearl Harbor

None of the more than 300 people who attended Herman Schmidt’s interment service Thursday afternoon at Arlington National Cemetery had ever met him. Most of those there had never heard his name until just a few days earlier.

Still, they came.

Still, they bowed their heads and prayed.

Still, they stood several rows deep under a leafless tree on a summery winter day to express their deep gratitude to the man they’d never met and whose name they’d just learned.