At Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, every day at high noon there’s a solemn ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. A wreath is laid in honor of a lost military service member, complete with a 21-gun salute and the playing of Taps. There are several types of memorial services that occur at the tomb, but to be chosen for the noontime wreath laying is a particularly significant honor.
On Dec. 27, Capt. Walter R. Elflein Jr., a decorated reconnaissance pilot whose only granddaughter is Madison Elflein, a junior at East Hampton High School, will be honored in this way, 63 years after being lost at sea during a training mission. To apply and be chosen for the ceremony from among hundreds of eligible families is a difficult process, which Madison initiated and then completed with the help of an aunt, Barbara Elflein.
When he died in 1958, Captain Elflein left behind his wife, Grace, and three children under the age of 8. His body was never recovered. In September of 1989, his youngest son, James Elflein, now a retired school psychologist, successfully lobbied for a headstone to be placed at Arlington.
The family visits the cemetery a few times a year.
“Now that we have our ceremony, it will be nice to go and visit and remember,” a teary-eyed Madison said this week. “It will be a more special place than it is now.”
Her family has strong ties to the military: A great-uncle served in World War II, and her father’s brother, Lt. Col. Robert Elflein, is a Naval Academy graduate and decorated Desert Storm fighter pilot. Every year during the Christmas season, Madison volunteers to lay wreaths at Calverton National Cemetery. She has manned water stations for runners and bicyclists in local Wounded Warrior events, and she volunteered at the Long Island State Veterans Home in Stony Brook when her mother’s grandfather lived there.
Because Captain Elflein died so many years before she was born, Madison knows about him only through stories from Grandma Grace, his widow, who died in 2013 and was laid to rest in Arlington next to her husband’s headstone.
Madison said she talks about the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier with her friends, most of whom don’t know what it is. She hopes to educate people so thatthey understand its meaning.
“If they ask what I’m doing over Christmas break, I’ll tell them. I think it’s important to learn about the ceremony in general,” she said. “Out here, not a lot of people go and visit.”
Her family, including her mother, Jennifer Elflein, who teaches special education at East Hampton High School, said they are humbled to have been chosen for the wreath ceremony.
“There’s something much greater than you,” James Elflein said. “You are part of something that’s unbelievably respectful.”
Having lost his father when he was 1 year old, he said the ceremony is important to him as well. “The hole that’s there will be there for the rest of your life. What you fill it with is up to you,” he said. “This is part of that.”
The year 2021 also happens to mark the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Tomb of the Unknown Solider, which stands on a hill overlooking Washington, D.C. On its website, it is described as “a place of mourning and a site for reflection on military service.” Through the application process, the formal wreath-laying ceremony is open to anyone who has a family member who never returned from a military conflict or exercise.
Captain Elflein flew more than 125 missions during his time in the Air Force. He was a recipient of the Flying Cross, the Air Medal with two Oak Leaf clusters, the Silver Star, and a Commendation Ribbon. He flew in World War II and became a Nassau County police officer for a time afterward, but later re-enlisted. “The itch to go back to being a pilot was too strong,” Mr. Elflein said.
He and Ms. Elflein said they are proud of their daughter for taking on this initiative, and for all of her work honoring active, retired, and deceased servicemen and women. “She’s kind of taking the torch from me,” he said, “and she can carry it as far as she would like to.”
