And So Begins the Task

—A Grave Registration.

SONIC CONNECTIONS:

With gravel and unexpected tenderness—by Sgt. Pepé LePeuw,

C-of-C-C Romance & Relationships Desk

Listen up,

I figured it was just another break-up song.

One of those soft-strum, half-mourned laments where a man folds into chords instead of facing the world.

So begins the task

That phrase—it prickled. Like unpacking poncho liners at dawn—quiet, deliberate, necessary.

Then I remembered the Graves Registration Units in WWII.

They were not the troops who fought, they were the ones who came after.

And their job? To retrieve bodies, identify the dead, and bury them with dignity—no fanfare. Just duty.

These units were usually part of the Quartermaster Corps, staffed by trained soldiers—clerks, logisticians, and occasionally volunteers who felt called to the final act of respect.

They weren’t criminals being punished. They weren’t combat heroes.

They were the clean-up crew for war, and they did the work no one wanted but everyone needed.

They logged dog tags.

Pulled bodies from forests, beaches, basements.

Dug graves in rain and mud.

One sergeant landed by glider on D-Day+1 and began laying out a cemetery with a K-ration box and string—no machinery, just method and mourning.

Locals helped dig. Troops carried the stretchers. No ceremony. Just silence.

That’s what “So Begins the Task” started to sound like.

Not a man crying in his beer.

A man doing the emotional equivalent of body retrieval.

Of digging up what love left behind and giving it a proper sendoff.

Then I saw the documentary:

Legends of the Canyon: The Origins of West Coast Rock

Turns out Stephen Stills played almost every instrument on the first Crosby, Stills & Nash album.

Lead guitar. Bass. Organ. Piano. Vocals. Harmonies.

Everything but the drums (Dallas Taylor handled that).

They called him “Captain Many Hands.”

That’s not indulgence.

That’s battalion-level grit in studio form.

And then there’s this version of the lyrics—rare, less heard, but sharp as shrapnel:

Then perhaps it is I who am trapped by illusion,

For the first time in quite a while I doubt myself.

All of these words are like any other words—

Only echoes of shadows within myself.

That one line—that’s not just heartbreak.

That’s the sound of a man realizing the enemy isn’t out there.

It’s in here.

Self-doubt as shrapnel.

Words as wreckage.

And he still kept going.

Stills wasn’t just crying. He was clearing out the field—words, instruments, memories.

Building something real from what was broken.

Turns out “the task” wasn’t grief.

It was quiet accountability.

It was falling to your knees and still finishing the job.

—Sgt. Pepé LePeuw

FURTHER READING:

With All Due Honors: A History of the Graves Registration Mission – Quartermaster Foundation

The Grave Task: Men Who Buried the WWII Dead – HistoryNet

WWII Graves Registration & Sgt. Kubinski’s Story – WW2History.org

Deaths in WWII: The Untold Story of the Burial Units – Warfare History Network