One of the most powerful photo shoots of 2009 was for the non-profit organization called Remembering the Brave. It was an awesome event celebrating the lives of fallen soldiers and presenting their families with medals, many of which earned posthumously. The event was held at the Marine Museum in Quantico, VA. For each fallen soldier, Remembering the Brave had a table with their uniform and two 8×10 pictures. Each and every gold star family (a family that has lost an active military member) were saluted by a marine, then presented a vase of roses (one per year of their life) and lastly a collection of the medals they had earned.
The beautiful woman in the white dress is Florence McSween and the images of her holding the uniform of her son were really powerful because she was not permitted to touch his body at the funeral.
Another moment I treasure is seeing the ‘i love you’ tattoo on the wrist of Ms. Harrington, a widow, and learning that it was scanned and copied from a letter found in the pocket of her fallen husband.
It was truly an emotional and powerful event that I am so thankful to have been able to document. I’ll never forget how young some of the widows were, or the fact that one of them was pregnant, and of course, the sacrifice of all service members and their families!
RTB Slideshow from Jensen Sutta on Vimeo.
