No Flag Stompers to be Found

[HiTemp]

Well I didn't manage to stumble upon any protestors during my trip to DC. It was a perfect day, bright and sunny with a nice, cool temp all day, just cool enough to not be a bundle of sweat but warm enough to not be uncomfortably chilled. We ended up walking about 13 miles visiting most all of the major monuments. Washington, Lincoln, WWII, VietNam, and Korean War Memorials, Arlington National Cemetery and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers, MLK and FDR Memorials. We didn't get to the Jefferson Memorial but I've seen it twice before. I had not seen the WWII memorial before as it was built after my last trip to DC. It was spectacular, grand yet full of subtle little symbolic details that make it the kind of memorial I like.

It's located right at the east end of the national mall across the street from the Washington Monument. At the other end of the mall sits the Lincoln memorial. As you walk in, there are short stone walls on either side with inset bronze sculptures of iconic scenes from WWII. It sort of starts with images of people signing up to fight at recruiting offices, going through combat training, being shipped overseas, then images of battles, all kinds, infantry, tanks, naval battles, etc. Then scenes of conquering an enemy, surrender, the release of captives, and finally celebration in the streets and the welcoming home of those who fought for our freedom.

I'm still going through all the pictures I took, and later when I get them resized and organized I'll post some of them.

It was great to see both of my Sailors again, and able to present my son with a gift in honor of his reenlistment that took place 2 days after this DC trip. I gave him two pens, first was the pen I used to sign the papers for my first reenlistment, and the other was a pen I made for him.

This is the one I made:

[Grug - American Neanderthal]

Wow, that's pretty fancy, nice job. Glad to hear it was a pleasant trip, kind of a bummer that you missed the topless womens rights protestors, but whatcha gonna do?

We got hit with a spring storm and have muck up to our... ankles.

Can't wait for pics.

[HiTemp]

Here are some pics from doing the tourist thing in Washington, D.C. last week. These only capture a glimpse of what it's like to see them up close and personal. In pictures, they appear simply as words or pictures carved into stone, but when you stand in front of them it stirs up internal emotions and a sense of awe that no photograph can ever do justice to. Still, I hope you enjoy them.

We started by taking the Metro (DC and surrounding area train/subway system) from Maryland over to DC, getting off at the Smithsonian stop. It dumps you out almost smack in front of the Smithsonian museum of Natural History, which is the iconic Smithsonian building with the gold domed top. Walking west along the park in front of the Smithsonian complex of buildings you come to the foot of the Washington monument



There, the view to the north looks across the Ellipse to the front of the White House.




Looking back to the east is the Capitol. The gold dome on the left is the Smithsonian museum of Natural History. There is scaffolding all around the Capitol building just below the top of the rotunda. Where you see the ground being excavated - probably putting in a larger septic tank system for Congress - is about where the Metro station is.



Looking the opposite direction, to the west, you see the WW2 memorial, the National Mall, the Lincoln memorial, and the Potomac River in the background. Though you can't see them for the trees on either side of the Mall, on the right side is the Viet Nam War memorial, on the left are the memorials to the Korean War, MLK, and FDR (furthest to closest).



As seen above, the WW2 memorial is an elliptical shaped monument consisting of two tall towers, representing the Atlantic and Pacific fronts of that war. Stacked between the towers are identical shorter monuments, each representing a state, and as you will see in pictures below, there are bronze sections of two large, intertwined ropes symbolizing a two-front struggle, that connect each state monument to each other and to the Atlantic and Pacific towers. I just loved the symbolism of it... where all states pull together; where a weakness in one is countered by the strength of another in the line; where the fight for freedom was integral to each, and each shared a burden. Just wonderful stuff.

On either side of the entrance are stones naming the monument




This is the dedication stone in the center of the entrance to the WW2 memorial





CONT'D

[HiTemp]

CONT"D

As you pass the entrance dedication stone, you walk through a kind of square section with bronze sculptures along each wall. The sculptures tell a kind of chronology for each front of the war. It begins with iconic scenes of Pearl Harbor or D-Day, shows things like men signing up at recruiting offices, getting on trains with loved ones waving goodbye, then being trained. That's followed by many of combat scenes, ground infantry, tanks, bombers, naval battles, etc. and continues with scenes of rescuing captive prisoner, surrender of our enemies, our guys coming home, and celebrations in the streets. Whoever chose these images did a marvelous job; they're kind of like Norman Rockwell images in the way that they are so simple yet there is a lot going on in them, and they capture a whole story in and of themselves.

Here are a few of them along the southern wall as you walk in:















As you get to the end of each section, there are quotations from some of the most famous figures of that era. In this one, you can see a part of a quote from Adm. Nimitz



Here is Nimitz's quote:



And as you turn that corner to the left toward the Pacific tower, there is FDR's famous "Day of Infamy" quote from Dec 8, 1941 as he spoke to Congress asking for a declaration of war against the Japanese Imperial government:




CONT'D

[HiTemp]

CONT'D

As you step into the elliptical section of the monument, there is a large central pool between the two tall towers and the state monuments. (Note: You'll have to forgive my poor photography skills, but I was attempting here to capture a kind of panoramic view of the inside of the elliptical section. The left side appears very distorted but that's because I was standing more to that side. There were a lot of school groups there, so I took up a position where I had a little room to take pictures mostly unobstructed, but did have to move a few time. Still, I think it gives you a sense of what it's like to stand there.)



The two tall towers contain within them identical large bronze sculptures consisting of four American eagles holding a large, circular laurel wreath in their beaks, as if they were lowering it carefully onto something. It's symbolizing a declaration of victory to that entire generation, not just those who fought, but also those back home who sacrificed and worked so hard at building the tanks and planes and ships. At the floor inside each tower is a large WWII victory medal, with the words "Victory on land, Victory at sea, Victory in the air. 1941-1945" They are absolutely beautiful! At the foot of each front's tower is a small semi-circular pool with small stone waterfalls. Inscribed around the edge of those pools are the major battles that took place in that front in chronological order.

Here's the Pacific Tower. FL's stone is right next to it.



These are the inscriptions around the edge of the pools giving the names of the major battles for that front




Another view of the tower's pool and inscribed battle names.




I had the pleasure - the honor, really - of meeting the gentleman you see in the wheelchair above. His name is Jimmy, 93 years young, and he was a Marine who fought in most of the battles inscribed around that pool. His grandson and great-grandson are with him. Try to imagine R. Lee Ermy at 93, tooling around a monument right after taking his morning dose of feisty pills. Still mentally sharp as a razor and completely uninhibited by barriers such as PC or polite language. As I was taking pictures, Jimmy is having them pause every three or four steps as he touches his cane to the name of the major battle site and he's remembering something about each, other people who he remembered from each place. He'd touch the name of a battle and say something like, "Charlie, you ol' bastard I still remember you owe me a pack of smokes. I'll see you again someday my friend and I better not have to remind you." Next one he'd tell his great-grandson about one of his platoon who was pinned down and as they fought to get to him, he suddenly popped up to deliver fatal shots to the head of the machine gunner who was trying to kill him. Unfortunately, Murphy got to his rifle and it jammed at that critical moment and while Jimmy and his cohorts blasted away from ineffective angles, the Japanese machine gunner laid a couple feet of belted rounds into his friend. Jimmy would tap his cane lightly on the battle name and say, "Sorry we couldn't reach you in time, Bill. We tried."

As we passed, I thanked him for his service, as did my son and my daughter. He looked at my son's haircut and asked if he was in the military and my son told him both he and his sister were in the Navy, and that I was retired Navy. Jimmy looks from one to the other of us and says, laughing, "Damn, a whole pack o' squids!" LOL "No Marines?" he asks. I said yeah, we got one, my nephew, but we don't let him out in polite society for their own safety. I asked about his WWII experience and Jimmy proceeds to tell us about how he was, in his own word, "One of the luckiest sons a bitches ever to walk the face of the planet." He described how, against great odds, he survived so many of these battles when it seemed everyone around him was dying. Guys started talking about him, saying how by some grace of God he was one of those guys who, no matter how thick it got, was destined to come out alive. Jimmy hated that they did that, he felt it jinxed him, but after a while he said he just kind of accepted it and it made him stop worrying about his own survival. He was convinced if he ran out of bullets, he'd just go kill Japanese with his knife until it broke, then he'd club the rest to death with whatever he could use - nothing they could do about it. Two nights before Iwo Jima, he was checking his platoon's gear and found out a couple of guys had been issued something that was broken. It had happened before, so Jimmy went off to go give the Quartermaster a piece of his mind and get it sorted out. As he's standing there in this huge pile of supplies, some guys were moving boxes in the pile and a big, heavy box came crashing down on his foot, crushing it and breaking his shin. His fighting days were over.

As we parted ways, Jimmy went on touching more battle names with his cane and continuing his narrative of what he was going to do or say to another of his former mates when he saw them again. It's a shame in a way they couldn't film it and have a holographic image of him for everyone to hear when they visited this monument. I'll tell ya, had there been anything like a flag protestor in sight, Jimmy would have come out of that chair and been the first one on them. My son described his age appropriately as "No-nonsense ninety-three."


Okay, back to the memorial:

Here is WY's stone. Note the double rope in bronze I mentioned earlier that runs in the space between each state's monument




And a few more of the inscriptions:








This is the part of the monument that got to me the most. It's at the very western side of the memorial, the part closest toward the reflecting pool on the national mall. It's called the Freedom Wall, and this plaque in front of it explains it all:




Here is the wall behind it. Pictures do not do it justice. I'm standing at the side to get it all in the photo, but when you stand in front of it, the reflection from the pool and the black granite stone inside the pool give the illusion that those stars continue forever, like one of those 3D boxes where the reflections continue to infinity. When you think about each star representing 100 American lives, and you consider that that number represents for most people their living generation and most of the family generation preceding and following, it's as though each star represents the elimination of one's entire family. Each of them 100 people, all with families, some with wives, kids, all of them with dreams and plans, just simply gone. Forever. Except here, at this wall.




Following that we walked through the Viet Nam war memorial, and since we have a 1/2 scale copy here in Pensacola, I was pretty familiar with it. You would not believe how many cards and letters, toys, bears, matchbox cars, etc. are left there every day. My cousin Robert Leon Boss, SP4 US Army, 1st Cav is on the wall on panel 7 east. He lost his life at 20yrs old when his unit came under artillery fire and were then assaulted by a large NV force. We knew him as "Buzzy," and he was one of those kids who was a laugh-a-minute. The 50th anniversary of his death is coming up on May 6th, so it was appropriate that I stopped at the real monument to say hello again and to say thanks.

His panel is to the right of the flag sign left under panel 6 east



His name is on the far left of the panel, seven rows up in this picture:




CONT'D

[HiTemp]

After the Wall, we saw my former favorite monument in DC, the Lincoln memorial.




My son made the remark upon entering that he always knew Lincoln was a big guy, but didn't realize quite how big he was. I just shook my head and said, "Boy, you ain't right." Lincoln's statue would be about 18-20ft tall if it could stand up.



Then my wife starts - "He's always been one of my favorite Presidents but now I see he wears Frye boots, he's gone up a notch."

I am not with these people!




It's a great view standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and looking out to the east






From there we got a quick bite at a small snack bar close to the Lincoln memorial. They served hot dogs and a bag of chips with a cup of soft drink for $10.80. These were like 10" long dogs, so we all chose the kids meal, which is a regular size dog, chips, and soda for $6.80. Plus tax, don't forget the tax.

Then we were off to Arlington National Cemetery, which is on the west side of the Potomac, so you have to walk across a good sized bridge that is adorned with sculptures of ancient soldiers on horseback (all Greek symbology) that were gifts to the people of the US from the government of Italy. In Arlington, there is a road that is kind of a direct path to the Tomb of the Unknowns, but there was construction going on and we had to take the next shortest route that leads past JKF's grave site with the eternal flame. That always seems to be photographed from the back side, so you don't get a sense of how high a hill it sits upon, but it's a rise of a good 40 feet. JKF and Jackie, and the child they lost the same year as Jack's assassination are interred there, and there is a marker for Caroline Kennedy's future grave site. John Jr. was cremated and buried at sea off Wood's Hole, MA.



When you come back down the hill east of JFK's grave and head toward the Tomb of the unknowns, Bobby Kennedy's grave is right there, just a simple white wooden cross behind a small marble stone.




On the south side of the same hill is Teddy Kennedy's grave, same simplicity as Bobby's. This gives you a sense of the hill I was speaking of. JFK's grave is about 3/4 the way up the hill you see in this pic.



A bit further along is Joe Kennedy




Finally you round a corner and here is how you first see the Tomb of the Unknowns




A couple more of the changing of the guard and the Tomb






After that, back across the bridge and to the Korean War memorial. It's a very odd memorial, because it's a wall of polished stone like the Vietnam memorial however there are no name, just iconic images sort of laser-etched into the stone. In front of the wall are these larger-than-life stone statues that are kind of like a platoon on the march, lots of space between each one. It's that way so when you view the wall, you see the images in the wall and these statues reflect in the background, giving the appearance of a troop of soldiers on the move behind what you see in the wall. The wall is so reflective it's nearly impossible to photograph without the reflection of something you don't want in the picture, or some photographic artifact caused by reflecting light.

Here's the statues as you approach it, the wall is behind them and you can already see their reflections on it.




And here's one of the wall. You can see what I mean about the statues reflecting in the background, and see how difficult it is to get good pictures of it.




CONT'D

[HiTemp]

CONT'D

Right next to, sort of behind the Korean War memorial is the MLK memorial. It's a small footprint, basically many of his sayings on walls that circle the monument on all sides except the side that faces the tidal basin. In the center is a tall sculpture that I think is a terrible image of MLK. To me, the pose and look on his face is more that of Link from The Mod Squad than that of Dr. King.  It's just too frowny and frustrating a look that I don't remember being something you saw often on Dr. King.   Still, my image preference aside, it's a nice monument and one of the nicest locations for any monument.



Standing about where I took the above pic, if you turn around 180°, you see the Jefferson Memorial across the tidal basin




Next to MLK is the FDR memorial and it's huge. It's a series of square plazas, each one dedicated to four years of his presidency. As you walk into the first section, it's all about getting out of the depression and getting people to work, conservation efforts, etc. Right as you walk in is my favorite quote from FDR, and I framed it with a tree in the foreground:




Now these two sayings, I wish our leaders today would carry their pompous butts over to this memorial and learn a little something.

One for Obama:



And one for Congress:







In fact, it was back as I left the WWII memorial that I was walking along a sidewalk, thinking about where I was (DC), and I spotted something that, to me, seemed so iconic of Washington DC today that I felt compelled to photograph it.  It's art.  I call it, "The contribution of our modern system of legislative partisanship to the good of American society."












Whaddaya think?  Should I wait by the phone for the National Art Museum to call any day, or? 


I didn't want to end the picture record of this wonderful trip with that image, so I'll end it with this one, taken late in the afternoon as I walked out of the FDR memorial and looked across the tidal basic at the Washington monument.  It made a beautiful reflection in the water, and that's what I tried to capture in this photo.





Hope you enjoyed the pictures and my recollections of the tour.  I really enjoyed being there and seeing these things up close and personal, something the camera will never fully replace.

[Grug - American Neanderthal]

Wow, what a great pictorial essay, some really powerful stuff there. I really like the water flows of the WW2 monument. Not going to be much longer and the Jimmys of this world will be gone, and all 1st hand recollection lost. I guess that is the march of time, but seems tragic in some way despite so many have recorded for history and has been done very well, but there is something that comes from that personal relation to it that you can there is much more to the story than what they are actually saying.

[HiTemp]

There were a few Jimmy types that were there as part of the Honor Flight program, where they fly WWII vets up to DC to see this monument (among other things). It's very different from watching Viet Nam vets who experience The Wall for the first time. My observation is that there is less a sense of grief and despair like you see at The Wall, but more along the lines of what you see in the ending scenes of Saving Private Ryan. If you remember that movie, Capt. Miller (Tom Hanks) lies fatally wounded on a bridge, and in his dying breaths tells Ryan "you earned it." As Ryan stands pondering what that means, he suddenly ages 50 years and you see he's standing in Arlington at Miller's grave, speaking across time to Miller, saying that he hopes the kind of life he's lived made Miller think it was worth the sacrifice of his life to pay for it.

When you watch these folks in silence, you see the full range of emotions come over them. They chuckle at some memory of a comrade's silliness all those years ago; that changes to a look of awe as they immerse back into that world of horrific sights and smells, and they begin to look rapidly side to side as if assuring themselves they aren't really back there. You see a look of rage come over them as their brows furrow deeply at the memory of a fighting enemy's brutality; and slowly, as their facial muscles relax again, you can see them asking themselves the question that, although silent, speaks as loud as a Pink Floyd concert: "Why me?" Like Ryan in Arlington, they stand there immobile, staring into the distance as they place the lives they lived on the scales opposite those who gave their full measure and silently weigh them in terms of the 70 additional years they've lived.

It's almost better to NOT have a camera in your hands trying to capture the sayings in stone and the pictoral testimonials to them. Better, I think, to pay close attention to these last surviving heros, watch their reactions and hear those quiet things they murmur. They ARE the monument, in reality.

[Grug - American Neanderthal]

Actually he told him to 'earn this' didn't he? Which at the end he was hoping he made a life worth saving, at least that's what I got from it. Anyway I think i know what you mean, if only in a glimpse watching old vets stand for the national anthem or the colors, a few times you can catch them and just see their mind is in another place and time, and its nothing a picture would show.

With the exception of the DC produce, the pic were all great though.

[HiTemp]

It's hard to tell. The first time Hanks speaks it sounds like he says "earned," but the second time it's "earn" for sure. I never caught that before, good catch.

As I was checking this out, it's funny how the film critics didn't really care for that opening and closing scene, which appears filmed in Arlington but I guess it's supposed to be the cemetery at the Memorial Grounds in Normandy. The critics who even bothered to mention it called it "sappy." Well, I challenge any one of those critics to go stand in DC at that memorial and tell me these last surviving warriors are filled with nothing but sap. I'd love to hear someone tell Jimmy that, he'd have put his cane in their crotch and had them at attention while he got their minds right.

I think what the critics loved about SPR was the realistic way that warfare was portrayed; a bloody, senseless, merciless, mess. What I don't think the movie does though is give any kind of full measure of reality, but critics apparently think it does. I've never heard of a movie critic, after having watched that picture, waking in cold sweats or psychologically self-punished into human dysfunction like many of our vets have become as a result of the non-Hollywood versions of war.

My brother-n-law was a Marine who served in Viet Nam and was right dead center of much of the defoliation efforts that used Agent Orange. Big, strapping guy in his 20s and 30s, in his 40s he began to lose a lot of leg muscle function, and today is he chair bound. He's lost decades of his working life, and our POS VA took an equal amount of time getting him diagnosed and treated, and is STILL not considered seriously disabled by them. It took a 9-year lawsuit to get them off their asses, and at least now they're covering his medicals and costs of all the support incidentals (wheelchair ramps, handrails, a special shower stall, etc.) If Trump does win and puts his foot in the VA's ass it will be IMHO one of the greatest acts of a President since the days of FDR. It grinds my teeth to hear of those VA bigwigs partying in Vegas on the public dime when our vets have to take them to court to get what was promised to them.

When I stand in one of those memorials and see these vets walk up to them full of trepidation because they don't know how they're going to react, it bothers me that our government would pull out all the stops to build such nice memorials but won't put equal vigor into dealing fairly with these human souls who did "earn it," but never got it.

Okay, rant over. Glad you enjoyed the pics.

OH, I almost forgot... While up there I happened to purchase a bottle of Snapple Peach Iced Tea. Inside the caps they have these little "fun facts" sort of things, and now I know what a flink is. I'd have been stumped if that was the million dollar question.

[Grug - American Neanderthal]

I think you stand anywhere there are rows of arched white marble and feel nothing, you have lost your soul regardless of your politics.

Flink? I had to look that up. We just call it a bunch around here.