Farewell to a Hero

This remarkable photo book depicts a funeral with Full Military Honors at Arlington National Cemetery. Major James T. Newman, a legendary air cavalry commander during the Vietnam war, died January 11, 2009, and was buried at Arlington on February 18, 2009. Many of the Army aviators who served under Newman nearly four decades earlier joined his family and friends to bid farewell to one of the most highly decorated helicopter pilots of the Vietnam era. On a cold, gray, snowy morning, a horse-drawn caisson bore the soldier's flag-draped casket to a gravesite overlooking the Pentagon as mourners followed on foot through the bitter chill of winter. Noted Washington photographer William K. Geiger www.billgeigerphoto.com captured the mood with stunning pictures of the time-honored military ceremony with soldiers in their dress uniforms ignoring the cold to execute with ritual precision the final salute to a comrade.