As students piled out of bars early Saturday morning, the day was just beginning for dozens of volunteers who unloaded cardboard tombstones for the annual Memorial Mile.
The memorial, located at Northwest 34th Street and Northwest Eighth Avenue, served as a tribute to the thousands of soldiers who have died in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts.
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By dawn, their cemetery was complete and ran the length of Eighth Avenue's Solar Walk, which is about one mile long.
There were 48 tombstones between the Solar Walk's Mercury and Venus.
Signs indicating events in the timeline of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts ran along the road.
Thousands of names extended past the sign that read, "'Mission Accomplished' May 1st 2003."
Stephen Hunter, a volunteer for the event, said it took 46 pages to list the names on all the tombstones.
There were six pages for those who died in Afghanistan and 40 for the soldiers whose lives were lost in Iraq.
Each of the 4,581 vinyl cardboard tombstones on display came with a brief obituary listing the soldier's name, date of death, branch of service, rank and hometown.
Soldiers with local ties had a miniature American flag on top of their tombstones.
"It touches me every time I walk it," Hunter said.
The Memorial Mile was a joint effort by Code Pink, a women-initiated peace movement, and Veterans for Peace.
Jackie Betz, the local coordinator for Gainesville's Code Pink Chapter, offered free pink lemonade and water as well as a shady escape from the heat as people walked by her tent.
Volunteers on bikes whizzed past the display, traveling from station to station to check that none of the markers had been disturbed.
Since last year's Memorial Mile, the number of tombstones has increased from about 3,800. Veterans for Peace allotted space for this, but the group was still unable to completely plan for the number of casualties.
"We had more than expected, unfortunately," said Jessica Newman, press coordinator for Veterans for Peace.
Newman said the purpose of the tombstones was to make the deaths a "visual reality."
"This isn't a protest," she said.
At dusk on Monday, the memorial was taken down and stored for next year.
