It made it thirty-two feet tall in bronze and placed it across the river from the capital.

It would stand there for as long as the metal held and the ground beneath it remained solid.

Six weeks later, he was dead.

The Distance Between Arlington And The Gila River

There is a geographic and symbolic distance between Arlington National Cemetery and the Gila River Indian Reservation that is worth dwelling on.

Arlington is on the Virginia bank of the Potomac River, directly across from Washington, D.C.

It is surrounded by the infrastructure of American federal power — the Pentagon is nearby, the capital is visible across the river, the graves of presidents and generals and justices cover rolling hills of carefully maintained green lawn.