DC - Monuments & Memorials

Saturday, 10/20

We did walking tour of the major monuments and memorials that are on the National Mall between the Washington Monument and Lincoln’s Memorial. Because there are so many pictures this is being posted as its own blog.

Looking at the Washington Monument through the fountain at the WWII memorial.

Each of the 4,048 gold stars represents 100 WWII American service personnel who died or remain missing.

One half of the WWII Memorial

The Vietnam Memorial is difficult to photograph because it is so wide.

There were A LOT of Honor Flight people here today. Honor Flight is a non-profit program that funds veterans’ travel to DC and arranges everything so they can visit the memorials. Previous to today we had seen tour busses with police escorts. Now we know why.

The Lincoln Memorial was swarmed with people - it’s Saturday, lovely weather, and there was an event going on at the bottom of the stairs.

Korean Conflict Memorial

There are 19 soldiers on patrol. They are reflected in the wall alongside which brings the total to 38 - one for every month that US personnel were engaged in the fighting.

The wall has images (from the National Archives) sandblasted onto the surface. Where it is not sandblasted, the wall is highly reflective which puts the visitors into the memorial as well.

Serena was a bit depressed and angry after the Supreme Court and the Civil Rights portion of the Museum of African American Culture & History. It was hard to see progress in our laws or the everyday safety of African Americans. The MLK Jr. and FDR Memorial are good antidotes and reminders of progress and hope.

Thomas Jefferson is a difficult person to understand. He wrote in the Declaration of Independence that “All men are created equal” and advocated for the end of slavery most of his life and yet owned more than 600 slaves. He fathered six children with his slave Sarah Hemings; they inherited their mother’s slave status and were therefore his slaves also. Two of those children were freed when he died but the majority of his slaves remained part of his estate and were sold.

Jefferson Memorial

Lots of pix of the Washington Monument

From the Lincoln Memorial steps