Elizabeth Belle walked toward the grave of her son carrying a canvas bag full of miniature pumpkins, silk leaves and other decorations for his headstone. Then she noticed the changes. Section 60 of Arlington National Cemetery, where more than 800 Iraq and Afghanistan war dead are buried, had been stripped bare. The photographs of young dead soldiers were gone. The balloons, too, and love letters, the sonograms and worry stones, the crosses and coins.
"They've taken everything," Belle said.
Over the past weeks, a quiet transformation has taken place in Section 60, leaving family members of the dead feeling hurt, saddened and bewildered. Today, Section 60 resembles the quiet cemetery of an older generation's war, not the raw, messy burial ground of one still being fought.