The Acorn on the Stone

Quick answer: What did John find on Nick Rowe's headstone?

On a walk through Arlington National Cemetery, John found four small rocks stacked on the headstone of Colonel James N. "Nick" Rowe, with an acorn wearing its cap balanced on top like a green beret. Someone had left a quiet salute to the Vietnam POW who escaped after five years and later built the Army's SERE course.

John stopped at Colonel Nick Rowe's grave in Section 48 of Arlington National Cemetery on a recent walk and found that someone had been there first. Four small rocks were stacked on top of the granite, and on the highest one sat an acorn still wearing its cap, set the way a beret sits on a soldier's head. The headstone itself is spare. It reads USMA 1960, POW Vietnam, captured October 29, 1963, and escaped December 31, 1968. Between those dates Rowe, a young Special Forces lieutenant, spent five years in a bamboo cage in the U Minh Forest, known as the Forest of Darkness. He kept his interrogators off balance for years by posing as a drafted engineer, and he lived through starvation and disease that killed the men caged beside him. On the last day of 1968 he broke away during an airstrike and flagged down an American helicopter while dressed in his captors' black pajamas. He told the story in Five Years to Freedom, a book John says every Green Beret of his generation read. Then he came back into the Army and built the SERE course, which teaches Americans at risk of capture how to survive it with honor, and the training facility at Camp Mackall carries his name. The last line on the stone records that terrorists killed him in Manila on April 21, 1989. John explains why visitors at Arlington leave stones instead of flowers: a stone stays, and it tells the family that someone came and remembered. He calls the acorn one of the smallest and most eloquent memorials he has ever seen, left with no name or note thirty-seven years after Rowe's death. The essay closes with John's Heroes' Path Podcast conversation with Rowe's son Alex, a history teacher, about his father and what it means to inherit his name.

Why it matters for leaders: Whoever balanced that acorn on Nick Rowe's stone signed nothing and expected no thanks, and the gesture still reached the next visitor who stopped there. Leaders can learn from that kind of care. Honor the people who came before you in a way that shows you knew exactly who they were, and do it whether or not anyone is watching.

Q: Who was Colonel Nick Rowe?

A: James N. "Nick" Rowe graduated from West Point in 1960 and was captured in Vietnam as a Special Forces lieutenant on October 29, 1963. He escaped on December 31, 1968, wrote Five Years to Freedom, and later built the Army's SERE course. He was killed by terrorists in Manila on April 21, 1989.

Q: Why do visitors leave stones on headstones at Arlington?

A: As John explains, a flower wilts but a stone stays, and leaving one tells the family that someone came and remembered. The visitor at Rowe's grave went further, stacking four rocks and setting an acorn wearing its cap on top like a green beret.

Read the full essay on Substack → https://heroespath.substack.com/p/the-acorn-on-the-stone

By John Fenzel, founder and CEO of Heroes' Path Foundation