No one knew who he was, or why his statue was there. He had been standing there and watching over the city silently for hundreds of years. His face had become one with the stone he was carved into. He was a saint for some, a fallen angel for others. No one knew when he had lived or how he had died. Man or god he was slowly losing the battle against nature. The death of his statue inevitable..until one day a photographer from half way across the world captured him through his lens. He is now immortal.
Photo Credit: Ashutosh Khandkar http://www.flickr.com/photos/99126239@N04/
Simple Plane Girl 
Well, taking inspiration from P, heres my take:
He stood where he had fallen. Fallen with comrades fighting for a righteous cause. There he stood silently watching over centuries pass, coming to terms with the realization that the cause for which he had chosen death had really not mattered at all in the turnings of the world. And everything that had really mattered had blurred with the tear in her eye as she had bade him goodbye…. and, then, had passed beyond recall.
S! You are a star, you have always been one! I love your version, “The lost cause” I would call it.