The Lost

I stopped in the Vermont Visitor's Center in Guilford, on the way to the conference. I went to this room where a Vermont-made canoe used to be on display, but it was not there this time. Instead there were these picture frames on the windowsill.  I walked over to see what they were, and I was stunned. There is a Dire Straits song "Brothers in Arms." The lyrics start like this: "These mist covered mountains, Are a home now for me, But my home is the lowlands, And always will be, Some day you'll return to, Your valleys and your farms, And you'll no longer burn, To be brothers in arms." In each of these picture frames are two photographs and brief descriptions of Vermonters lost in the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. If these photos were in a room with plain walls, the display would be moving. But there was something about seeing these photographs, with the view out of the window of this misty valley with green trees - a landscape that these soldiers would never see again. The scene nearly moved me to tears.