Hello loyal
readers I’m back by popular demand and this time I’m in the nation’s capital. I’m
going to be in DC for most of the summer for an internship in the meantime I’m
going to try and keep y’all posted about the things I’ve been up to. I’ll
apologize now about this post because of the fact that I’ve been out here for
about a month so this is going to be a long post. I’ll probably have to break
it up into several parts.
Due to the
nature of my internship I’m not able to visit many of the sights during the
work week. So I’ve been spending most of my weekends at the numerous museums,
memorials, and tourist attractions. So far I visited all the memorials on the
national mall, except the Jefferson memorial (which is way out away from the
mall).
While all
the memorials are indeed special I felt that the World War II memorial and the
Vietnam memorial were the most moving. I remember being at the WWII memorial on
the weekend of June 6th. As I was slowly walking around the
memorial, I was quietly reflecting to myself that this memorial was there to
symbolize the sacrifice this nation made in order to make the world a safer
place. As I was doing this I remember seeing the people around me.
Most of them
seemed oblivious to the fact that they were standing in a memorial, let alone
what the memorial stood for. This troubled me, I stayed motionless watching all
the happy tourists laughing, joking, and taking pictures of themselves acting
silly. Suddenly something pulls me from my thoughts I see a group of women
motioning me to come over to them. When I got over to them one of them asked me
to take their photo in front of the memorial naturally I agreed to help them. As
the group sorted out how they were going to pose for the picture. Something
behind them caught my eye.
It was an
older man; he looked to be probably in his mid to late sixties. As he walked to
one end of the memorial I could sense that he came to this place to remember
someone. When he reached the end of the memorial I saw him bend down and place
something on the ground. About that time the group of women were ready for
their picture. I quickly took two shots to ensure at least one turned out well. I handed the camera back to the owner and hurried over to where the man had
been standing.
However, by that I got over to the spot the man was gone and all
that was left was his mystery package. The old man had placed two medals and a
little packet on the lip of the memorial fountain. The fountain itself was made
out of granite. The edge of it had the names of important battles and campaigns
of the European theater engraved on it. The old man placed his belongings on
the part of the fountain that bore the name NORMANDY. The medals appeared to be
a bronze star and the WWII victory medal, the packet that accompanied it
contained pictures of the national cemetery overlooking Omaha Beach, a small
bag of sand from that beach, and small note.
The note
said that the reason the medals were placed at the memorial were to remember
the man’s father who had fought at Normandy. He believed that these things
belonged here, the note went on to thank all those who served during the war
and to offer to give these items to anyone who fought at Normandy. As I stood
there looking at these items I was hit by a wave of emotions. The
Strongest feeling I had at that moment was regret, I wished I could have found the
gentleman that left behind this heart-felt note and these medals and talked to
him. I wanted nothing more than to sit down on one of the park benches and listen to him as he talked about
his father. Nevertheless I knew it would be impossible to find the gentleman in
a city the size of DC. (To be continued….)
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