We decided to take my parents and my grandpa down to Washington D.C. for a quickday trip when they came out to Baltimore.
We decided to drive to the Georgetown area to park. The reasoning behind that is not lost on most East coast residents. The traffic snarls around the center of Washington D.C. are monumental (pun intended). It's best to just park in an area a few miles from where you want to go and then take a cab to the various sites. The benefit of that is that you get dropped off right next to your destination.
We walked down to a restaurant called Sequoia. It is right on the Potomac River and has a wonderful view of Virginia. There is also a boat dock next to the patio where large boats come in. We got lucky as far as the weather goes. It was 60 degrees and sunny, which is awfully nice for mid-November. Had a great lunch and then jumped into a taxi and headed off to the monuments.
We hopped into two cabs and headed out of Georgetown. We had an excellent cab driver. I asked him about any famous people that had he had given a ride in his cab. He proceeded to list off senators, representatives, and several people who had run for president or vice-president. He was a great guy and he dropped us off right where we needed to be.
My grandfather and father had not been to Washington D.C. in 30+ years, so they might as well have been going to a totally new city. Many of the war monuments have been added since they were last there. We started off by going to the newest, and probably the best monument in Washington D.C., the World War II memorial.
The WWII memorial is great because it has a bit of everything: fountains, sculpture, marble. It is open in the middle to allow a view of the Lincoln Memorial to the Washington Memorial and vice versa. That was one of the musts if they were to build the WWII memorial in the middle of the mall. It also has a wall of bronze stars. Each star memorializes 100 Americans that died fighting in WWII. You have to be there to see it in person, but trust me when I say that there are many, many stars on that wall.
We walked down the mall towards the Korean War monument. I had not seen it before. It's a great memorial with several large sculptures. Each sculpture is a U.S. soldier walking through a rice field in Korea. The various soldiers are represented from the unit. As we were walking through the memorial, my grandpa pointed at a soldier and said, "That's me".
I was initially trying to figure out what he was saying, so I enquired further. He then told me that he was a radio man in his unit in WWII. I chuckled and asked him if he had to carry a backpack that big. He said, "No, it was much bigger. Our packs were 110 pounds. We were expected to storm the shores of Japan wearing a 110 pound bag of radio gear."
I asked him how he carried his rifle with all that gear. He just laughed and said they didn't get rifles. Evidently, all he had was a pistol to carry in case he got himself into a mess. From the sound of his comments, he didn't seem too confident in that pistol.
Here's why the above conversation is so interesting. In all of my years, I couldn't get any comments from my grandfather about his experiences in WWII. The only glimpse of a picture into that world was when we watched 'Saving Private Ryan'. He mentioned that the war scenes were spot-on. That was it. Suddenly, the sculpture of a radio man in the Korean War monument had sparked him to tell us more about his WWII experience than any other time throughout my life. It's amazing how things work that way.
We wandered across the steps of the Lincoln memorial and went over to see the Vietnam War memorial. It's interesting that the memorial for a war which was protested so vigorously by a large portion of America and who's veterans were not always received home with open arms is now one of the most popular memorials in Washington D.C.
The black wall is the first thing you see. They have books nearby where you can find out where the names of the fallen are located on the wall. Mom looked up some names of people who came from her hometown and found them on the wall. The part I like best is the personal items that are left at the base of the wall. All of the items are collected daily and stored. I'm sure there will be a wonderful museum with those artifacts someday. Some are specifically left by family members. I saw a T-shirt that was left for a family member. Others items are from people that don't even know anyone on the wall. I saw one letter written by a young child. It said, "Dear Soldier, I don't know you. But I wanted to thank you for fighting for freedom so that everyone in America can live free."
Grandpa was starting to get tired, so we headed off to Arlington National Cemetery. They have bus tours that wind their way through the cemetery, so we could all sit down and relax for awhile. We went to the Kennedy gravesite, where all of the Kennedy's now rest. We drove by the area for judges, noting the freshly covered grave of Judge Rehnquist amongst all of the other notable judges. By the way, Judge Rehnquist does not have a reference to him being a
Supreme Court judge anywhere on his tombstone. He is listed by his rank from his time in the Armed Forces.
Finally, we reached the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. It's always a really cool place to go. The soldiers were making the usual steps.....21 steps down, pause for a count of 21 and then 21 steps back before pausing again for a count of 21. For those that don't know, the constant use of the number 21 refers to a 21 gun salute, which is given to honor fallen soldiers. We got to see the changing of the guard, which is always very precise in its orchestration. A group of cadets
showed up and stood at attention while observing the changing of the guard. The sun was setting, providing an excellent opportunity for pictures of the tomb.
We grabbed a cab to head back to Georgetown. A bit of excitement occurred when we got into the cab. The cab driver didn't want all 5 of us to go in one cab. We offered to get out and catch another cab that would allow it, but the cab driver realized he was going to lose a fare and so he relented. He wasn't happy about it, but he got us back to Georgetown so we could get our car and head back to Baltimore.
