Returning Home: Capt. Michael "Scott" Speicher

In the ancient Spartan tradition, there were only two cases when burial markers were permitted: for warriors killed in battle and for women who died in childbirth. The memorials were simple stones, often without inscriptions.

 

When inscriptions were allowed, they were terse and succinct. The most famous Spartan epitaph—for the Three Hundred who fell defending the pass at Thermopylae—was composed by Simonides the poet, a non-Spartan. It is known today in every corner of the globe:

  

Go tell the Spa