{"id":40338,"date":"2022-05-30T09:48:44","date_gmt":"2022-05-30T15:48:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/for-the-director-of-the-u-s-air-force-academy-cemetery-every-day-is-memorial-day\/"},"modified":"2022-05-30T15:48:44","modified_gmt":"2022-05-30T15:48:44","slug":"for-the-director-of-the-u-s-air-force-academy-cemetery-every-day-is-memorial-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/for-the-director-of-the-u-s-air-force-academy-cemetery-every-day-is-memorial-day\/","title":{"rendered":"For the director of the U.S. Air Force Academy Cemetery, every day is Memorial Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"2022
2022 marks 30 years since Janet Edwards took on the role of mortuary officer at the U.S. Air Force Academy Cemetery. She estimates she has managed about 1,500 hundred funerals in her career. (Dan Boyce\/CPR News)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

When Janet Edwards took on the job of mortuary officer at the U.S. Air Force Academy Cemetery in 1992, she had never seen a dead body. She had never been to a funeral, let alone facilitated one \u2014 and the first burial she had to oversee was that of a 9-year-old boy.<\/p>\n

The woman training Edwards advised her to find a way to distance herself from the emotions of her new role.<\/p>\n

\u201cI found very quickly that I couldn\u2019t do that,\u201d Edwards said. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to do it, because then I couldn\u2019t care for families the way they needed to be cared for.\u201d<\/p>\n

Three decades later, as the only employee in her office, Edwards has managed about 1,500 funerals at the 100-acre site on the south end of the Colorado Springs-based Academy grounds.<\/p>\n

The Academy cemetery looks modest compared with the rolling hills of marble headstones present at a place like Arlington National Cemetery. At the academy, there are no headstones at all. Graves are marked by horizontal bronze plaques nestled in freshly cut grass.<\/p>\n

For a short time each year \u2014 from the Friday before graduation to the day after Memorial Day \u2014 the grave of each veteran is marked by a small American flag. With rare exceptions, it is only academy graduates, personnel and certain eligible family members who can be buried here.<\/p>\n

\"Many
Many members of the first U.S. Air Force Academy Class, the class of 1959, are now in their mid-80s. Mortuary Officer Janet Edwards has seen the number of funerals at the academy cemetery rise dramatically in recent years. (Dan Boyce\/CPR News)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Statues
Statues of an Air Force color guard watch over the U.S. Air Force Academy Cemetery on Friday, May 27, 2022. (Dan Boyce\/CPR News)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Edwards walked among those flags on Friday, speaking in the sort of gentle and comforting voice that could only come from years spent consoling so many grieving families. She had been working with a family on funeral preparations earlier that morning. It\u2019s what she does on a daily basis and her workload is growing dramatically.<\/p>\n

She said her first year on the job, the academy conducted 28 funerals. Last year, that number had risen to 127 as members of the Academy\u2019s early classes pass away in higher numbers. As the newest military academy in the country by more than a century, many of the institution\u2019s first graduates are still alive. They are in their mid-80s, however, and Edwards said she expects the rate of funerals at the cemetery to keep going up.<\/p>\n

She regularly consults with academy grads who one day wish to be buried at the cemetery. Edwards is the same age now that the Academy\u2019s first graduates were when she first started in her role.<\/p>\n

\u201cI get close to them. I tailgate with them. A couple of them are my \u2018hockey husband\u2019 and my \u2018football husband\u2019 when their wives don\u2019t want to go,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s a personal connection for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Edwards described her role in life as honoring and celebrating the lives of the people buried in her cemetery. And, for her, every day is Memorial Day.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always get teared up when I tell a family member, \u2018It\u2019s our honor to welcome your loved one home to the Air Force Academy,\u2019\u201d Edwards said. \u201cThey don\u2019t expect it, but it is true.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Edwards has managed 1,500 funerals at the 100-acre site in Colorado Springs<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40339,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[255,28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-40338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-death-and-dying","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40338\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40338"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=40338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}