US Public Health Service Cemetery - Capitan, NM
Posted by: 
linkys
N 33° 29.401 W 105° 30.955
13S E 452072 N 3705732
Cemetery where deceased patients of the Ft. Stanton Merchant Marine tuberculosis hospital were interred.
Waymark Code: WM7R4P
Location: New Mexico, United States
Date Posted: 11/25/2009
Views: 7
Located in Lincoln County, New Mexico, this cemetery is the final resting place of 1837 Merchant Marine Seamen from eight countries. Located on a gently sloping hillside north of the hospital, it has a short section of stone wall where the entrance gates are located.
Entrance
Immediately within the cemetery there are several memorials to the men of the Merchant Marine.
Memorial
But the most poignant moment comes when you look out and see the large field filled with white wooden crosses. Interspersed within the crosses is the occasional stone marker, but most of the graves have only the cross with a small block of concrete with a letter and numbers stamped in them.
Crosses
Standing there one begins to realize the magnitude of the horror that the diagnose of "consumption" must have cast on people those many years ago. With some 10,000 mariners treated at the hospital and nearly 2000 graves in this cemetery it was a disease to be feared.
With the hospital closed for many years, the cemetery is once again being used. The rows of new graves with the markers of our veterans is a fitting new chapter for this seeming almost forgotten cemetery.