If I die in a combat zone, box me and ship me home

comments welcome

Absolutely stunning. I love the murkiness and sadness to the picture. Did you add any of the fog?

The mist gives a nice sense of depth to the photograph and gives a powerful impression of the tombstones going on forever in the background. The bleakness of the snow and bare trees, together with the choice of black and white also contribute to the power of the image. I can't say that I would hang it on my wall without fear of an eventual bout of depression, but the power of the image is unmistakeable.

tell my moma I did my best, and bury me in the leaning rest...

This really grabs you, as all good photos should. Thanks for sharing this with us. I ran across this photo and felt compelled to share it here. I never knew they did this at "Arlington". All the best, Al

stunning...powerful...beautiful.

Simply breathtaking. This one stands above the already high bar your images set.

Beautiful.

 

Happy New Year, Tim! Hope all is well.

Thanks for the comments and Happy New Year! Sarah, you retire yet? If I had your gravy job I'd never retire, ha ha! Saw my nephew over the Holidays,he is off (third time) to the belly of the beast in Feb.

very powerful.

Powerful and beautiful image. Nicely done. Dan

This picture conveys, very well, that wars involve organized madness in which there is little for either victor or vanquished but heartache and lasting sorrow.

 

The verse "If I die in a combat zone, box me up and ship me home" is a modernized version of a parody of a common childrens' prayer that first became common with Union soldiers during the Civil War. The original version, reflecting the experience of infantry in the field, went as follows: "Now I lay me down to sleep / In mud that's many fathoms deep / If I'm not here when you awake / Just fish me up with an oyster rake."

 

This picture may have been taken at Arlington National Cemetery. Those buried there include casualties from the Civil War, World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, Afghanistan and Iraq. Judging from their uniformity and general appearance, the headstones in this picture may date from the Civil War. Prior to the Civil War, Arlington was owned by relatives of Robert E. Lee, a graduate of West Point who resigned from the U.S. Army to join the Confederacy. During the War, Union commanders confiscated Arlington and ordered that it be used as a military graveyard, so that Robert E. Lee would never be able to forget what he and his Confederate comrades had done to America and Americans. By the time that War was over, the Union and the Confederacy had suffered a combined total of approximately 900,000 military casualties, at a time when the total combined population of the United States and the Confederacy was approximately 35 million.

 

After that War was over, people on both sides began placing flowers on the graves of those who had been killed; some stories have that tradition starting in the South, others in the North. In 1868, General John Logan, the national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, the national organization of Union veterans, officially proclaimed May 30, 1868 as a Memorial Day to decorate the graves of combat casualties at Arlington Cemetery with flowers. New York State, which had lost many troops in the War, officially recognized that date as a state holiday commemorating the Civil War in 1873, and all of the former Union states recognized it as a holiday by 1890. Southern states did not recognize May 30 as a holiday until after World War I, when the holiday was changed from a Civil War holiday to one honoring U.S. casualties in all wars. Eight southern states (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas) still have legal state holidays, on dates other than May 30, commemorating Confederate casualties of the Civil War.

 

The Christmas wreaths at Arlington are not placed there by the U.S. Army, or by cemetery staff. They are placed by volunteers who bring them down by truck from the State of Maine. If you ever wonder why people would bother driving all the way down from Maine just to place wreaths on old graves, the explanation might possibly have something to do with how the troops of the 20th Maine Infantry conducted themselves during the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863, after the Confederate Army invaded Pennsylvania, trying to cut Washington, D.C. off from the rest of the Union. When a Confederate force tried to turn the flank of the Union line, the 20th Maine, a relatively small unit, was sent to defend the end of the line on a small hill named Little Round Top. The unit held its position despite suffering heavy casualties from repeated attacks by larger Confederate units from Alabama and Texas. When the unit finally ran out of ammunition while under attack, its commander, a former school teacher named Col. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, ordered those left standing to fix bayonets and charge, taking the attackers by surprise. This protected the Union line from collapsing, and allowed sufficient time for reinforcements from other units to shore up the Union position. Subsequent Confederate attacks on the Union line failed with extraordinarily heavy losses. When the battle was over, the combined casualties from four days of fighting totaled roughly 48,000, including 3,155 Union dead, roughly 20,000 other Union casualties, between 2,600 and 4,500 Confederate dead, and more than 20,000 other Confederate casualties. The Confederate Army retreated south from Pennsylvania, never again seriously threatening to invade the Union. Many in the 20th Maine, however, for whom that fight was quite literally "the end of the line," did not survive to know that they had played a key role in saving the Union. One can understand why people from Maine might still consider it worth decorating graves at Arlington.

No one wanted to go next after that very well done book!

Gorgeous shot...You have a gifted eye.

J

Peter, wow, what a comment and very informative! The shot was taken at the VA Cemetary here in Milwaukee last week.

Excellent storytelling! I've been finding myself admiring your work on multiple occasions and this image is one such example!

Excellent foto! It does look like Arlington Cemetary.

 

Jim Phelps

Very good.

Very nice Tim. Your composition is perfect. :)