If a military staff sergeant tells you to remain silent, the order applies to your cell phone as well.
We visited Arlington National cemetery while we were in DC and caught the hourly changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The ceremony starts with the military officer in charge of the guard detail announcing to the onlookers that, in keeping with the solemn nature of what you are about to see, remain silent and standing for the proceedings. Somewhere in the middle of the 10-minute ceremony, a man's cell phone went off.
He answered it.
If there is a more inappropriate time and place to answer your cell phone, I have not yet found it. Nonetheless, I did not see as many people yapping on cell phones anywhere else in the city as there were shouting conversations in the middle of Arlington, where all you can see in three directions are little white stones marking people we, as a country, have sent off to die in the name of freedom. The fourth direction is a commanding view of the city with more cemetery in the foreground.
Did I miss the cell phone feature that offers users an exemption from common decency and respect?
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