Q: Where did this idea originate?
A: Deb Withey and Paul Nelson asked me to come up with an inside page to commemorate Memorial Day and after a little research, I thought a gravestone rubbing might be nice way to single out one from the geometric forest of stone and be personal and universal at the same time.
The Hampton National Cemetery has eight Medal of Honor recipients buried there, but Ruppert Sargent stood out to me because he died in the Vietnam War and he was born and raised in Hampton. All the others fought in the Civil War.

Q: What was involved in making it happen?
A: First of all, we wanted to see if Sargent had any family still living in the area. Jake Hays discovered his widow and son, but contacting them proved to be very difficult. Anyhow, more than a week went by and the phone numbers were not working – one was a fax, one would ring and ring with no answer, one was for a car dealership… so I went out to the cemetery the Monday before Memorial Day to make the rubbing. I decided that I would talk to the family afterward. Understandably, the cemetery director would not allow me to make the rubbing without the family’s consent.
Jake found another number that day, the son’s cell phone, and I contacted him that afternoon. (A little more on Jake’s role, from Meredith Kruse: Jake really worked Accurint’s second- and third-degree connections hard for us and that’s what finally paid off. He found a woman who turned out to be the mother-in-law of Sargent’s son and she gave us the phone number we needed.)
After a couple of conversations, the son reluctantly gave permission to do the rubbing. He apologized for being so reticent, and explained that his family was very private and protective of Ruppert’s legacy. But in then end, he said he trusted me when I told him that we would be respectful of his father and his family.

Q: How many folks in the newsroom worked to make this possible?
A: Jake, Maureen Watts, Meredith, Kim Kent, Paul, Deb, Maria and Denis all had a hand in it. (And for online, Miranda Mulligan pulled together an interactive map of veterans’ cemeteries and a tutorial on how to decorate a military grave).

Q: When did you do the rubbing and what was that like?
A: I went out there last Thursday, at around 11 a.m. Making the rubbing was very moving. The stone is 13 inches wide, and maybe 20 inches tall. I taped a piece of 18- x 24-inch white paper on the top of the stone with masking tape and held it against the breeze with my right hand as I started rubbing it from the top down with a black grease pencil. The image of the cross in the circle revealed itself first, then his name, and on down… as I got to the bottom of the stone, I had to lie face down on the grave. The grass was thick, cool and smelled good. It was shady and quiet. It took between 10-15 minutes.

Q: This page was originally slated to run inside (with a front-page promo), and then Denis suggested that we make this our front page. What was your response to moving it to the front?
A: My first thought was, “That wonderful, crazy sonofabitch.” Then it dawned on me that I’d have to make sure Sargent’s son was cool with it. He was thrilled when I told him it might be the front page.

Q: What has been the family’s reaction?
A: The son called me this morning to let me know that he and his family loved the page. He said he was in a 7-Eleven and just watched people walk up to the paper and stop in their tracks at the sight of it. He thanked me and said he was so honored to have his father given such prominence on Memorial Day. He also said it was much more powerful than he thought it would be.