#CWBC: Arlington National Cemetery

This week’s theme for Cee’s Black and White Photo Challenge (CWBC) is Numbers. That theme plays out two ways in this photo: literal numbers on the headstones, the years of birth and death, but more powerfully in the numbers *of* headstones. A visit to Arlington National Cemetery makes tangible the number of people who have died in service to the United States, and of course there are many more who are buried elsewhere. It’s one of the few truly solemn places I’ve ever visited.

One of our Tourmobile guides through Arlington was a former military man. As he drove us around the cemetery, he spoke of the shared sacrifice of generations of soldiers buried there. Then he said:

War is sometimes necessary, but it should always be the last resort.

Indeed, brother. Indeed.