Trail Of Tears

WOOTTON BASSETT, UK - AUGUST 2009: Picture shows a scene in Wootton Bassett high street as crowds gather at a repatriation ceremony. As the death toll of British forces fighting in Afghanistan reaches the grim milestone of 200, the repatriation ceremonies continue to attract large crowds of mourners to the small market town of Wootton Bassett. On nearly 100 occasions the church bell has sounded and people have fallen silent as the hearses carrying the dead have passed through the town centre en-route from RAF Lyneham to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. Through television news reports the town has become recognised world wide as a symbol of a nation's grief and respect for its young service personnel who come home in flag covered coffins. However, it is not just in Wootton Bassett that people gather to pay their respects. As the cortege winds its way for 60 miles through the English countryside people stand silently along the roadside in small groups, heads bowed, and pain etched on every face. Teenagers in jeans and T-shirts stand side by side with saluting old soldiers wearing medals from previous bloody conflicts. As the cortege enters the university city of Oxford the numbers grow as families, shoppers, workers and students stop what they are doing and pay tearful respect to Britain's fallen heroes at a repatriation ceremony. (Photo by Tom Stoddart/Getty Images)