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Three miles from the pristine marble rows of Arlington National Cemetery lies the grave of Army Private Hezekiah Dorsey, my great great grandfather... 
At 26, Hezekiah banded together with men enslaved at their Montgomery County plantation to escape enslavement, cross the Potomac River and join the United States Colored Troops at Camp Casey in Arlington Virginia. washingtonpost.com/news/house-div…
He did not know then his regiment would serve in what would be one of the last and most defining battles of the Civil War, the battle of Petersburg, Virginia.
Injured from flying shrapnel to the chest, Dorsey recovered at a Union Hospital in Philadelphia and later returned with his regiment ensuring an end to war and the freedom of the enslaved from the Carolinas through Texas.
He returned to Arlington, Virginia a hero, with a section of Arlington named in his honor. He settling to work in the quarry’s in Georgetown, and start a family with his wife Lavinia, having thirteen children, five of whom would reach adulthood. ggwash.org/view/30334/lit…
Visiting his grave, terribly faded by over 100 years of weather here at Calloway United Methodist Church (in the historically black neighborhood of Halls Hill) reminded me of the purpose of this day.
Let us commit to telling the stories of those who serve, a gravestone fades, but the legacy of the men and women like him whose service built communities, cities and livelihoods last forever.
“They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, We will remember them.”
