Here I Go

Quite by random, I am starting this blog on Veterans' Day 2011, today being 11-11-11.
It is fitting therefore to put up some pictures on the subject of wars and sacrifice.


A few weeks ago I rode my bike over to Arlington National Cemetery. In the visitor's center was this amazing quilt with 50 panels representing the 50 states. Each panel had a photo of a child's face 'dressed' in a tiny uniform of one of the branches of the US military. Each child was in fact a deceased soldier killed in Afghanistan, and by showing them as 7-10 year-olds it really hit home what a loss each life represents.
(Click on photos to enlarge.)

I continued over to the Marine Corps War Memorial (the Iwo Jima statue) and took a picture there.

Etched around the base of the memorial is a list of wars and interventions that Marines have participated in since 1775. I'll have to go back and count them but honestly, there must have been close to 50! The list ranged from the 'Florida Indian Wars' to the dozen or more incursions into Cuba, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Nicaragua, Honduras, Panama, Haiti and the Dominican Republic and those are just in the early years of the 1900's. Also listed of course are the wars we all know or remember such as WWI and WWII, Korea, Viet Nam, Grenada, Persian Gulf, Somalia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc....  Made me sad to think that the young soldiers who enlist out of a sense of duty to defend our country or in defense of an ally aren't always put to work as defenders but sometimes unfortunately kill and die in wars for the interests of business. Read what Major General Smedley Butler -one of the most decorated Marines in US history had to say about war: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_is_a_Racket

Did they really sign up to sacrifice in this way?

I'll end my first post of Washington DC with a zoomed-in view across the Potomac from Arlington Cemetery to some of the iconic DC monuments. It is a beautiful city.