USS Maine Memorial - Arlington Cemetery, Virginia

"Remember the Maine! To hell with Spain"


That was the battle cry that sparked the Spanish-American War in the late winter in 1898.  

As I was meandering around the memorial, I found it quite surprising the changes that have undergone in the Navy, especially since the Navy is so determined to stay as traditional as possible!  On this memorial, the ranks of the Sailors were merely their rating, or their job.  In example, a common title found one the memorial crowned by a ship's mast was 'Coal Passer', which in the era of the Maine, that was vital to the operation of the ship.

Grave sites such as this one marked as the Unknown Sailor are fairly common around the memorial.  266 men lost their lives aboard the USS Maine on the fatal day on February 15, 1898, in the Havana Harbor, Cuba.