For those who do not know, the battle of Antietam is the bloodiest day in America's history. Some 22,000 men were either killed, wounded, or reported missing in the fields outside of Sharpsburg, Maryland on September 17, 1862. That makes it four times bloodier than D-Day.

Walking these fields and knowing the carnage that must have been present here 147 years earlier is a very sobering experience. May all these young men who never got the chance to grow old rest in peace.