Photo By Elizabeth Fraser | North Carolina Courage Team Captain and Center Back Natalie Jacobs, center right,...... read more read more
Subscribe
Players and staff of the North Carolina Courage women’s professional soccer team visited Arlington National Cemetery on Aug. 7, 2026, to honor the country’s fallen by laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
Team captain and center back Natalie Jacobs laid the wreath alongside head coach Mak Lind, Chief Soccer Officer Ceri Bowley and retired Army Lt. Col. Grant Barge, who serves as the team’s senior director of leadership. The other Courage players, clad in black uniforms, looked on from the steps of the Memorial Amphitheater, some wiping away tears.
Jacobs credited Barge for organizing the visit. Barge knew that several members of Jacobs’ family were either serving or had served in the military, including her grandfather, U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. Delbert Jacobs, and that laying a wreath would be a good way to honor the unknowns on behalf of her family. “I never could imagine that we would have had an opportunity to do that,” Jacobs said. “It's such an honor.”
While Jacobs was laying the wreath, thoughts of gratitude ran through her mind. “We can never repay what people have done to help us live the way we do,” she later said. She then pointed to a hill in the distance covered with rows of headstones. “I thought of my grandfather, who’s buried right over on that hill. This would have meant a lot to him.”
Barge wanted the team to see that the fallen were not distant historical figures; they were people just like them, “whose absence continues to be felt by the people who loved and served alongside them,” he said. He also had a personal connection with the cemetery; one of his soldiers, Pfc. Michael Metcalf, who lost his life in Afghanistan in 2012, is buried in Section 60. Barge often inspired the Courage players with Metcalf’s story.
The ceremony had a profound effect on the team. Midfielder Riley Jackson admitted to getting emotional. “To see this extraordinary place, full of honor and beauty, is really touching to the heart,” she said. “This is something I'm going to remember for the rest of my life.”
| Date Taken: | 08.10.2026 |
| Date Posted: | 08.10.2026 16:20 |
| Story ID: | 571999 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 21 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, N.C. Courage Women’s Soccer Team Pays Tribute to the Fallen at Arlington National Cemetery, by Kevin Hymel, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
