Came to Washington early. Was well over Baltimore and my conference. Caught the Amtrak to Union Station and then went to my hotel and checked in. Then picked up my camera and guidebook and started walking. I am staying near Georgetown and near George Washington University so I close to all the things I wanted to see.
Went first to the Lincoln Memorial. Which is an impressive monument. And the Gettysburg Address has always moved me.
Then I walked down to the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial. Don’t know what I expected. I just walked up and down and looked. I took some photos and then wandered some more and watched and listened to people. It is an incredible monument. It’s powerful and moving. It’s hard to get your head around the fact that there are 58,000 names on those pieces of black stone. 58,000 men who never came home to their families and loved ones. Who never had the chance to live. Ask the mothers, fathers, lovers and friends of those people whether any war is worth it. Incredibly sad and incredibly frustrating. This is the true cost of war. The only thing I think could add to the message of the monument is that they need enough panels to write the names of the 3 million Vietnamese who also fell in that war.
There were quite a lot of older people there – several older couples – men and women in their seventies looking at names and taking rubbings of them. A group of immaculately dressed older women – like they were on their way to church on Sunday – holding one of their number and patting her on the shoulder as she cried quietly against the Wall. From their accents and conversation I gathered they were from somewhere in the south. I don’t know who the boy the woman was crying over was but from her age I would guess it would be a son. I wonder if she’d been there before and whether seeing that name was a comfort or a curse?
Then a group of laughing and mocking schoolboys walking past me – no interest in where they were at all. Then one of them stopped dead. He’d found someone with his exact name on the Wall – down to the middle name. They clustered around the name and looked serious – all their humour seemingly gone. Their teacher gathered them up and I watched them walk away – no laughter now.
Eventually I walked away too.
I walked up to the Washington Monument but couldn’t work out how to get a ticket to get in so just had a sticky beak and kept walking. Went all the way around the White House – got several stares from guys in black jump suits with Secret Service caps – I think partially bearded men with black overcoats and black jeans are probably on their list of potentially suspicious characters. Took some photos and kept walking. Walked all the way through Downtown and then up onto Dupont Circle. Then back to my hotel. Feet were bloody sore.
Tomorrow I’m going to hit the Library of Congress, the Capitol building, the Smithsonian, the National Archives, the Holocaust museum and whatever else is in that general area.
