War Memorials

Two Thoughts for Tuesday









Viet Nam Veteran's Statue



Thought #1

While I thoroughly enjoyed all the sights around Washington DC this week, I will say the war memorials were among the most moving for me personally. Nothing "shakes me to my core"  more than looking at the families that are doing their etchings of their loved one's name on the Viet Nam War Memorial wall. 

It is the Viet Nam Memorial in particular that I have a personal connection.  Those 58, 272 names were men and women that fought in a war that my brother, my friends, and my extended family took part in.

In 1969 both my brother and my boyfriend (now husband) enlisted in the Army.  The draft lottery was to start that year and my brother who was born in 1950 was the first year that the lottery was drawn for.  He would have been drafted had he not enlisted.  Immediately after boot camp by brother was sent to Viet Nam. He stayed there for 2 tours of duty which got him out in 2.5 years.

As I was still in high school and the fact the women weren't part of the draft kept my involvement limited primarily to the task of writing letters and shipping  boxes containing tins of cookies, jars of peanut butter and Kool Aid (to mask the taste of the crappy water) and a sundry of other things to help with the "awfulness" of that war.

Luckily, my brother came home two  and a half years later with a hand full of medals and a Purple Heart, BUT he did come home. 

Thought #2

Also, in 1969 my life moved forward.  I had another year of high school, got engaged, got married and by 1975 we lived in Kansas City, Mo.  We had a little girl that was 17 months old and a baby on the way. My husband was still in the military, although he was past being "active" and  was classified a reservist with the US Army.

We were expecting another baby  that was due to be born in April of 1975.  Unfortunately, things weren't going well with that pregnancy.  I had become very ill close to my due date and we were told that our baby had not survived.  Additionally, it wasn't looking particularly promising that I could survive the C Section to deliver our stillborn baby.  Nothing was going well on that score.  After an emergency C Section and a day and a half in a Intensive Care Unit, we learned that our baby had not been a stillborn birth but had been taken to the Neonatal nursery.  There seemed to be a lot of confusion as to who he belonged to which is why it took the better part of two days for us to learn of his survival.  In those days, stillborn births were scheduled on the General Surgery floors as to keep the mothers out of the happy place of the Maternity Wards.  I was on the General Surgery floor. When Kiddo #2 arrived at the neonatal nursery there wasn't a corresponding mother in the maternity ward.

And what does any of this have to do with a War Memorial you ask??? Kiddo #2 was born on the morning of April 23, 1975.  President Ford made "A War That Is Finished"  speech at Tulane University that day. The final end of the war was official one week later on April 30th.



looking at the wall



Some of the 58,272 names

Another one of the war memorials is the Korean War Memorial

19 stainless steel soldiers replicate a platoon on patrol

The 19 statues reflect off of a granite wall making it appear
as if 38 are there. 



Here are some assorted pictures from our trip. 




The Good for the Day...Hubby never went to Viet Nam.  He worked in personnel and did the paperwork of the men that were going there.

The Bad for the Day.. There was a lot of anti war sentiment with the Viet Nam War that made being a soldier very difficult.

The Weird for the Day... As I was standing at the wall, I was eavesdropping on some of the conversations.  I heard an young couple, probably in their late 20's, ask "when was the Viet Nam War?"







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Politicians or Patriots

Washington DC is a great place to visit for a anyone that has become tainted by the skepticism and cynicism that goes with the present climate of politics. (oh, that would be me) I have needed an infusion of idealism sparked by seeing how  our nation started and what our Founding Fathers had in mind for a nation that was to be free and provide us with the "pursuit" of happiness.  I think people forget that our country was set up to allow us to search or pursue our happiness not a guarantee that we would always be happy. It was their intent to set up a government  that would  protect our freedoms.

AND....while  I  haven't  been particularly happy with some of the ongoing antics coming out of our politicians, I do love our country.  I love my life  (most days) and appreciate the day to day ease of living in my home.  I think I (maybe a lot of us) take it all so much for granted because we are caught up in our everyday routines and don't think at great length about how blessed we are.

With that in mind, it is a real reaffirmation of the glory of living in America when you see these:



The US Capitol

The Capitol was started in 1793 and took 21 years to build.  Thomas Jefferson wrote that "the first temple dedicated to the sovereignty of the people."  It, however, was burned down in 1812 and had to be rebuilt.



We picked the weekend that the Dali Llama was making
 a speech at the Capitol. Here we are
with a few thousand friends




If you don't like crowds this wasn't the day to be at the Capitol. I, on the other hand,
was having a GREAT time.

The Rotunda from the view of me looking up with my mouth hanging open in awe.

 Lincoln Memorial



This is one of the Memorials that just take your breath away. The Memorial is 190 ft. wide which makes
Lincoln's statue appear dwarfed but it is 19 ft. by 19 ft.

Arlington National Cemetery and Arlington House

Arlington National Cemetery is on the site of the 1100 acre home of Robert E. Lee.  Lee's wife, Mary had inherited the property from her father who was the grandson of Martha Washington and the step-grandson of George Washington.In 1861 the Lees vacated their home after having lived in their home for more than 30 years. This was due to the fact that Robert E. Lee had taken the side of the Confederacy and the Union took over the property.  The Union turned it into a National Cemetery. Today there are more than 300,000 men and women interred there on 624 acres.



At the Tomb of the Unknowns a 24 hour a day sentinel watches over the tomb.  This is a picture of the changing of the guards.  During the day, this time of year the sentinels change every half hour with a very precise ceremony.



Robert E. Lee's home, Arlington House still stands at the top of the hill overlooking the cemetery.

Washington Monument




555 ft tall. Impressive



Looking up again, with my mouth open again.  WOW

The Library of Congress

The Library of Congress is the largest library in the world.

There are 838 miles of bookshelves in the library.

Hope you aren't bored with my vacation pics but that is what I am doing for the time being.  As I haven't been reading the newspapers or watching TV, maybe important things are happening that I don't know about.  We did see President Obama board his helicopter yesterday on the South Lawn.  I hope he wasn't leaving town for anything that is worrisome.

So for today, I am going to go back out and see a few more sights around DC. I will show you some of the Smithsonian favorites, as well as the Korean and Viet Nam Memorials on my next couple of posts.



The Good for the Day...fun city to visit.

The Bad....The traffic here is like nothing I have ever seen. In today's Washington Post, it says that DC has surpassed LA for the worst traffic.  That's a #1 that I wouldn't want to be part of.

The Weird for the Day....While Pierre L'Enfant is credited with designing Washington DC, he in fact was fired after he turned in his plans. (His original plans are housed in the Library of Congress) He initially wasn't paid for his work. He spent much of the remainder of his life trying to collect  payment for his work. Later in his life was paid a small amount of money that went to his creditors.  He died in poverty.