Vt. Stone Shed Carves War Dead Markers

“Out of a regular order, we may get two to four from Iraqi Freedom in there”

In a noisy stone shed, far from the perfect rows of gravestones at Arlington National Cemetery, a dozen people carve the monuments to a nation's war dead.

Here, huge blocks of marble _ some extracted from a Danby mine, some brought from the state of Georgia _ are sliced into rectangular blocks by giant circular saws, the tops curved and then etched with the names of the fallen.

Most of the 2,000 to 3,000 stones carved each month at Granite Industries of Vermont are for veterans of World War II, Korea and Vietnam, or replacement markers for graves that date to the Civil War or the American Revolution. Read more