Downtown Park in Bellevue is quickly becoming a favorite walking area of mine. It’s close to my apartment and has plenty of parking. It’s a pretty popular area, good for people-watching and candid photos. And the trail around the park is exactly 1/2 mile long, making it easy to keep track of how far I walk.
I went there today for my getting-to-be-regular photo walk and was surprised to see a large field of white cardboard crosses and headstones. I figured it was a memorial of some sort, and that was exactly it. Arlington Northwest was holding a memorial for all of the American soldiers who have died in Iraq. Each cross and headstone had the name, age, home town, and date of death for a soldier. Some of them had short notes on how the soldiers died. Most of them also had paper bags with candles in them, ready for a candlelight vigil.
As I walking around the memorial, I noticed that the average age of those who died were in the early-to-mid 20’s. Many of them were 18 and 19 years old. It was kind of an odd feeling seeing a memorial for so many people who were younger than me. It’s not quite a graveyard, but it had the same eerie quietness and somber feeling. Interestingly enough, I was one of the younger people who walked through the memorial. Most of the people who paid their respects were much older than me.
I’m not exactly a supporter of all the war-mongering the US has done in recent years, but I have nothing against showing respect to the men and women who gave their lives doing their jobs. I ended up spending a couple of hours hanging out at Downtown Park taking pictures of the memorial and of the people passing through. Interestingly enough a few of the organizers of the memorial asked me if I was part of the media and if I knew if more were going to show up. I elected not to lie about myself and just went about shooting photos like I normally do.
Many of the park regulars glanced at the memorial on their way through the park. Quite a few stopped their daily run/walk/stroll to detour through the aisles and read the names. Some simply looked and left, while some were visibly choked up and in shock at how young most of the fallen were. I wanted to get in closer for some more intimate shots but decided against being too disruptive. This didn’t seem like a good time to stick my lens in someone’s face.
Despite not being as aggressive with my shooting, I still managed to get some nice photos of the memorial. The full set can be viewed in my Flickr photostream.
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Those are some really wonderful shots Danny. Good stuff.