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#flashHeader{visibility:visible !important;}Recently, James Estrin interviewed Luke Sharrett, a freelance photographer for The New York Times and other publications, about the gravestones at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. Mr. Sharrett's answers have been edited into a narrative.
I lost my cousin Dave - Pfc. David H. Sharrett II, who was in the 101st Airborne Division - when he was killed by friendly fire in Balad, Iraq.
That was my introduction to Section 60 at Arlington National Cemetery and what it means, the tears that are shed there and the family members and friends who come back to visit those who are buried there. I would go back to visit that site where I personally had felt so much grief. It was therapeutic in a way, but I felt that I was almost doing my duty as a representative of my family to see my cousin and to pick a dead leaf or two away from his grave and wipe some dirt off his headstone and talk to him, think about him and remember him.
That's a pretty powerful motivator.
I started noticing the tops of the tombstones in 2010, as I covered active-duty casualties from Iraq and Afghanistan in Section 60 of Arlington National Cemetery for The New York Times, when I was an intern in the Washington bureau.
Luke Sharrett for The New York Times Sgt. Scott Lange Kirkpatrick, U.S. Army. Died Aug. 11, 2007, in Iraq. Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Va.Section 60 is home to American casualties from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars - though there are a few graves sprinkled in of World War II and Vietnam veterans who either died of old age or whose bodies were discovered overseas after many years of being missing in action.
It was always a somber assignment, and every time I was there I would notice something different on the headstones. At Christmastime there would be wreaths on almost every headstone, and around Memorial Day and the Fourth of July there would be American flags.
On Memorial Day and Veterans Day there would be a lot more people, families and friends of the military personnel buried there, and there would be more mementos and trinkets left - tokens that would evoke memories that were sentimental to the person buried there or the visitor. They ranged from predictable things like flowers or their unit insignia to the less predictable, like childhood toys, a half-finished bottle of Jack Daniels or a candy bar.
Luke Sharrett for The New York Times Pvt. Kelly D. Youngblood, U.S. Army. Died Feb. 18, 2007, in Iraq.There's more to these stories than just the names and dates inscribed on the front of the headstones.
I think you can learn more than just a name and a date and a death anniversary date. There is uniformity to the headstones at Arlington - they're all evenly spaced and evenly carved, and they're all uniform except for the name or perhaps a religious symbol etched into the headstone.
On Dave's gravestone, I've left an American flag patch and I've left him flowers. When I went back during this project, there was a penny from the year of his birth on there that someone had placed. He went to high school in North Virginia, and his grave gets a lot of traffic from his friends and his teammates from his high school football team.
You can see characteristics of the individuals from what is left on their graves. They tell a story. There are some headstones that didn't have anything on it. And that made me stop and wonder who this person was, and why no one had left anything.
Luke Sharrett for the New York Times Pfc. David H. Sharrett, U.S. Army. Died Jan. 16, 2008, in Balad, Iraq. Section 60, Arlington National Cemetery, the day after Veterans Day. The symbol is the Episcopal cross.Follow @LukeSharrett and @nytimesphoto on Twitter. Lens is also on Facebook.
