Company D soldiers of the 3rd U.S. Infantry, known as “The Old Guard,” photograph headstones with smartphones at Arlington National Cemetery, Aug. 30, 2011, to help reconcile burial records. U.S. Army photo by J.D. Leipold.
America’s most hallowed cemetery is trying to update its records, and it’s turning soldiers into photographers to do it.
The mission to reorganize the database of Arlington National Cemetery is employing the efforts of about 100 soldiers and volunteer students, armed only with iPhones, to photograph headstones and account for every single person interred at the famous military burial ground.
Over the course of several months this summer, members of the Cemetery’s Old Guard will photograph all 219,619 grave sites and the front of 43,096 cremated remains in the columbariam. That includes the 726 new burials since the project began. Dubbed Task Force Christman after Pvt. William Henry Christman, a Pennsylvania native and Civil War soldier who was the first person buried at Arlington, the project is partly in response to a scandal last year in which it was discovered that many of the graves were mismarked.
The project is conducted at night in order to avoid the summer heat (and to respect the 30 or so funerals held there every day). Photographers originally traversed the grounds in full Army uniforms, but it was determined later that the photos turned out better when there was no reflection from the soldiers’ stark white suits.
For many of the grave sites, the photographers are forced to get creative.
“President Taft’s marker is really tall,” said Army Capt. Nate Peterson, whose Company D has accomplished much of the work, “and they wanted to make sure they got a nice head-on shot, so one of the guys put another guy on his shoulders, backed up and took the picture.”
In the end, the project has given many of the soldiers-turned-photographers a chance to think about the importance of documenting the final resting place of so many heroes.
“It’s kind of a weird feeling looking at all of those who have come before me, wondering what they did in their careers,” said Army Pfc. Chris Bodell. “Looking at the graves, taking pictures to help document the people who fought in the Civil War and those who have died in the current conflicts — this is all so much bigger than just myself.”