We Thought We Had All the Time in the World

Section 60 is not about a troop surge or a war spending bill or whether we should be fighting these wars at all. It is about ordinary people trying to get through something so hard that most of us can’t ever imagine it. Everyone I met that afternoon had a gut-wrenching story to tell.

Mary McHugh is one of those people. She sat in front of the grave of her fiance James “Jimmy” Regan, talking to the stone. She spoke in broken sentences between sobs, gesturing with her hands, sometimes pausing as if she was trying to explain, with so much left needed to say.

Later on, after she spoke with a fellow mourner from a neighboring grave, I went over and introduced myself and told her I was photographing for Getty Images and had brought my family on our own pilgrimage to the site. I told her we had been living in Pakistan for the last few years, how we had come back to the States for a few months for the birth of our second child.

Mary told me about her slain fiance Jimmy Regan. Clearly, she had not only loved him but truly admired him. When he graduated from Duke, he decided to enlist in the Army to serve his country. He chose not to be an officer, though he could have been, because he didn’t want to risk a desk job. Instead, he became an Army Ranger and was sent twice to Aghanistan and Iraq – an incredible four deployments in just three years. He was killed in Iraq this February by a roadside bomb.

I told her how I had spent a lot of time in Iraq and Afghanistan, photographing American troops in combat. I told her that earlier this year I was a month in Ramadi and then a few more weeks in a tough spot called Helmand. I told her how I am going back to Iraq sometime this summer and that I was very sorry to see her this Memorial Day in the national cemetery, visiting a grave.

Mary said that they had planned to get married after Jimmy’s four years of service were up next year. “We loved each other so much,” she said. “We thought we had all of the time in the world.”

This is a portion of photographer John Moore's 2007 blog post about his iconic image. It's worthwhile to read the whole thing. 

Please remember all the Jimmy Regans and Mary McHughs this Memorial Day.