The Things They Buried

Jonathan Ebel, professor of religious studies at the University of Illinois, presented research from a trip to France on the American Battle Monuments Commission's 23 overseas military cemeteries, arguing that their Latin crosses, chapels and statuary cast the fallen soldier as a Christ figure and bury counter-narratives: African American soldiers' mistreatment, the Cromwell twins' suicides, a nurse who died of breast cancer leaving orphaned children. Spring 2011 series "Americans at War." A long audience Q&A followed, including a military mother's comments on burial practice and an exchange on Pat Tillman.