From the earliest history of image-making, American photographers have captured moments reflecting some of the nation’s darkest hours.

The most famous photographs taken in the Civil War - the deadliest military conflict in American history - are attributed to Alexander Gardner or to his better - known employer, Mathew Brady, who owned a photography gallery in Washington, D.C. Gardner was 41 when he photographed Maryland’s Antietam battlefield, site of the bloodiest one-day battle in our history, and those images of dead soldiers shocked the nation.

More contemporary photographers have captured other dire moments that also reflect the indomitable national spirit.

AP photographer Joe Rosenthal’s Pulitzer Prize winning photo of troops raising the American flag on Iwo Jima became an iconic image to the U.S. Marine Corps. It also became a symbol of American perseverance and unity during World War II.

Three days after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, New York Daily News photographer Dan Farrell captured a heartbreaking image of the president’s young son John-John saluting his father’s coffin near St. Matthew’s Cathedral in Washington. John-John, who turned 3 that day, stands next to his mother, the recently widowed first lady Jacqueline Kennedy.

Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York City in 2001, New Jersey newspaper photographer Thomas E. Franklin took an iconic image of three New York firefighters raising a flag amid the rubble at ground zero.

Last week, New York City firefighters gave us another visual moment that raised the spirit of Americans now coping with the coronavirus pandemic. In a show of support for their emergency-response colleagues battling the COVID-19 outbreak in the city, firefighters assembled to support health care workers who were finishing their hospital shifts in lower Manhattan.

“Selfless heroism is at the heart of every first responder,” one health care worker tweeted in response to that show of unity.

New Yorkers weren’t the only ones to recognize their health care workers on the front lines.

All week, residents in midtown Atlanta cheered and applauded from their balconies as the medical professionals changed shifts.

Bill Kelly, a member of the Greatest Generation, has lived through each of the aforementioned moments in our nation’s history, except for the Civil War of course. Being one of the first - and oldest - Americans to survive the coronavirus, the 95-year-old Oregon veteran is a living link between World War II’s Greatest Generation and the present national crisis.

On March 15, Kelly went to the hospital with a fever and aches, and two days later, he tested positive for COVID-19. No one else in his home got sick, so it’s uncertain how Kelly contracted the virus. His underlying medical conditions, including kidney disease, a congenital heart condition and high blood pressure, put him in a high-risk category.

While recovering, Kelly was inspired by the many workers focused on a common cause. The last time he saw the nation rally with that kind of commitment was in World War II when Americans were also frightened, but had a laser-beam focus on defeating the Axis powers.

After surviving the world war and now the worldwide pandemic, Kelly is fortunate to have friends and family at his side.

In a Facebook post, granddaughter Rose Ayers-Etherington called him “pretty hard-core” and said Kelly was “kicking it in the butt.”

Grandson-in-law Isaac Etherington called Kelley’s amazing recovery “a great blessing.”

Kelly’s formula in beating back the invisible enemy? On the spiritual front he admitted to praying a lot, and for practical help he followed the advice of the medical experts.

Do that, he said, and everything will be OK.

By Jim Zbick | tneditor@tnonline.com