Manila American Cemetery

After church on Sunday, we drove over to the Manila American Cemetery, which is on the grounds of Fort Bonifacio, which used to be Fort William McKinley, when it was run by the U.S. Army. A staggering 17,206 Americans and Filipinos are buried there, most of whom died in World War II operations in the Philippines and Papua New Guinea.

The cemetery has a chapel and beautifully-manicured grounds ("Isn't that the first riding mower we've seen in the Philippines?" Shelly asked. "Yeah," I said, "and it's even a John Deere!") It was a remarkable thing to see in a country where most gardening and yard work is done by hand. (On the other hand the cemetery is 152 acres, which would take a long time to groom by hand...)

Carved on the walls of the memorial in the center of the cemetery are the names of 36,285 missing who died in the region. Seals of the states are carved into the floor. The cemetery has a feeling similar to that you get at Arlington National Cemetery in Northern Virginia, with fewer visitors and few memorials. When we arrived, there were only two other cars in the parking lot, which you reached only after passing a guard who recorded our license plate number and information from my driver's license.

After the quiet of cemetery, we hopped back into Makati for a couple of hours at the Red Box karaoke box. As a tribute to our mothers, we made sure to sing both John Denver and Kenny Rogers songs. (Plus, my voice is better suited to guys like that than to Aerosmith and AC/DC. I just can't perfect that hard rock falsetto. Of course, I might have had more luck if we had been there on Saturday night drinking beer instead of Sunday afternoon drinking ice tea...)