As Americans everywhere celebrated the recent Memorial Day weekend with parades, fireworks and backyard barbecues, members of the US Army's Third Infantry Regiment in Washington, DC, were busy placing tens of thousands of small American flags at the graves at Arlington National Cemetery, as a way to remember those who served the US.
As America's great imperial graveyard, Arlington National Cemetery sees more visitors on that weekend than at any other time of year. But one military grave which probably did not receive a flag, nor see any visitor, is that of Major Liu Nia-chien.
Liu's grave, marked by a standard issue white stone, is located not far from the graves of general Jimmy Doolittle and Audie Murphy, both famous American heroes and Congressional Medal of Honour winners. Doolittle, a renowned pilot, led the famous 1942 air raid on Tokyo which was a highlight of the recent Hollywood film Pearl Harbour. Murphy was a young Texas farm boy who single-handedly killed more than 260 German soldiers and became the most decorated American soldier of any war.
But there's a difference between Liu and his fellow honoured soldiers who rest nearby, beneath identical white marble gravestones.
Unlike Doolittle and Murphy, Liu was neither an American nor famous. In fact, no one at Arlington seems to know anything at all about Liu, except what his grave stone reads: 'Nia-chien Liu, Major, Chinese Army. October 19, 1946.'
Liu's grave is one of only 55 belonging to foreigners buried at Arlington. More than half of these are British or Canadian. The mysterious major is the sole Chinese among more than 260,000 graves.