The Young Dead Soldiers

Presidio
Bay Ridge Trail
Presidio Cemetery Overlook

Dedicated on Veterans Day 2009, the Presidio cemetery overlook honors the service and sacrifices of America’s soldiers. A wooded section of the Bay Area Ridge Trail leads to the overlook, which is a perfect place for quiet contemplation.

The cemetery overlook offers one of San Francisco’s most stunning views of the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco Bay and the Marin Headlands. The carvings are part of  “The Young Dead Soldiers,” a poem by Archibald MacLeish, who served as an artillery officer in World War I.

The young dead soldiers do not speak.
Nevertheless, they are heard in the still houses:
Who has not heard them?
They have a silence that speaks for them at night,
And when the clock counts.
They say: We were young. We have died.
REMEMBER US.
They say: We have done what we could,
But until it is finished it is not done.
They say: We have given our lives but until it is finished,
No one can know what our lives gave.
They say: Our deaths are not ours: they are yours,
They will mean what you make them.
They say: Whether our lives and our deaths were for,
Peace and a new hope or for nothing we cannot say,
It is you who must say this.
We leave you our deaths. Give them their meaning.
We were young, they say. We have died;
REMEMBER US.

by Archibald MacLeish,
1892-1982, American Poet

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The overlook is part of the Presidio Trust and was designed by their in-house landscape architect Rania Reyes.  The stone is a quartzite from Montana (Chief Cliff Quarry).  The company that did the engraving is Acme Memorial.

The overlook is the fourth of eight overlooks planned as part of the Presidio Trails, Bikeways and Overlook Campaign. It was made possible through a generous gift from Robert and Kathy Burke.  It was cited as one of 2012’s Notable Developments in Landscape Architecture by the Cultural Landscape Foundation.