{"id":17585,"date":"2010-02-21T08:20:04","date_gmt":"2010-02-21T13:20:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=17585"},"modified":"2010-02-21T08:24:21","modified_gmt":"2010-02-21T13:24:21","slug":"brothers-to-guard-tomb-of-the-unknown-soldiers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=17585","title":{"rendered":"Brothers to guard Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/a>
\nU.S. Army Staff Sgt. Jonathan Brisiel, left, takes part in a Tomb Badge Ceremony with his brother, U.S. Army Spc. Mathew Brisiel, right, as their mother Cathy Brisiel looks on, Friday, Feb. 19, 2010, at Fort Myer in Arlington, Va. (AP Photo\/Luis M. Alvarez)<\/span><\/p>\n

For the first time in history, two brothers are in the platoon of 27 soldiers whose responsibility to guard the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery.<\/p>\n

Army Spc. Mathew Brisiel of Spring, Texas, on Friday followed his brother, Staff Sgt. Jonathan Brisiel, when he became the 578th soldier awarded the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier Identification Badge since 1958.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The training for that particular job wasn’t just physical;<\/p>\n

Most striking, though, was what it came to mean for him when his trainers would ask if he “loved the unknown soldiers.”<\/p>\n

“In my head, I was thinking, love the unknowns? That’s a little strong, that’s a little much,” Mathew Brisiel said.<\/p>\n

But something changed over eight months of training.<\/p>\n

“When I’m standing out on the plaza and I’m walking and I see an elderly woman sitting there by herself crying … it sends chills up your body,” he said. “You realize how awesome it is. … You represent every soldier that gave the ultimate sacrifice.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It wasn’t just the two brothers who recognized the importance of the moment;<\/p>\n

Their mother, Cathy Brisiel, said her sons have joined a tradition she knew as a child. She grew up in Washington, and her grandfather is buried at Arlington.<\/p>\n

“I wish my late husband had been present to witness such an accomplishment for his boys,” she said. “I thought my heart would pop out of my chest this morning when I saw my boys in their uniforms.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If you’ve never seen the Guards at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers, here’s a video I took of the changing of the sentinels on Memorial Day, 2008;<\/p>\n

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U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Jonathan Brisiel, left, takes part in a Tomb Badge Ceremony with his … Brothers to guard Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-military-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17585\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}