Why We Dig - Kāpēc mēs rokām

At Legenda Military Archaeology, we often hear the same comment: “Just leave them alone.” It’s a sentiment usually rooted in respect, but it overlooks a harder truth.

Most of the soldiers we recover were never laid to rest.

They were left where they fell: in farmers’ fields, beneath modern roads, in private gardens, hedgerows, and woodland edges. Some lay for decades beneath plough lines. Others beneath houses, driveways, or industrial estates. They were not buried with ceremony. They were not remembered by name. They were simply lost.

War moved on. Life grew over them.

Picture by: Benjamin Mack-Jackson

But being forgotten is not the same as being at peace.

Every soldier we recover was someone’s son, brother, husband, or father. They had a name. A story too. A home they never returned to. To say “leave them alone” assumes they were buried in the first place.

In reality, many were abandoned by circumstance, chaos, and time.

Legenda International Member Christian Grundmann finds a name plate engraved with a Soldiers details - this gives that soldier his name back. Picture by: Benjamin Mack-Jackson

Digging is not about disturbance, it is about dignity.

When we excavate, we do so carefully, methodically, and with respect. We document. We identify where possible. We return these men from anonymity to recognition. And when they are finally laid to rest—sometimes over a century later—it is often the first grave they have ever known.

A grave matters. Legenda Leader Talis prepares the fallen for their worthy grave. Picture by: Benjamin Mack-Jackson

It is a place where a name can be spoken again. A place where history becomes human. A place where families—sometimes generations later—can finally say “he is found.”

These soldiers were not meant to vanish into the soil of private property or the margins of roads. They did not choose to be forgotten. And they do not belong to the ground simply because time passed.

Every soldier Legenda finds gets a worthy grave. Picture by: Benjamin Mack-Jackson

We dig because every soldier deserves a grave.

Article by Jonathan Baynard - January 2026