My family and I visited Arlington national cemetery this summer while my middle child was at a camp nearby. My maternal grandfather is buried there, and I wanted to see his grave. He served in World War II, the Korean war, and the Vietnam war.

What struck me about Arlington National Cemetery that makes it different from the other museums and public spaces in DC, is that it’s not a place that is meant for you to frolic and play and take pictures and assert ownership over the space as a right of citizenship. When you go to Arlington, you get a sense that while you are welcome in that space, that space does not belong to you; it belongs to those who rest there. The military and other staff who work there treat it as a sacred space that they are holding for the benefit and honor of those buried there. It is a space they will continue to protect and pass onto future generations until this blue marble falls out of the sky. Your visit is lovely and welcomed, but you are not the point of Arlington National Cemetery.

That is what has jarred so many people about the Republican candidate for President’s campaign stop there. It is alleged that they treated Arlington National Cemetery like it was their space to manipulate as they pleased and not a space that they entered into with reverence and respect.

Arlington National Cemetery demands that we remember it is not a backdrop for our ambitions, but a hallowed ground where the true cost of freedom is honored and safeguarded for all time.