More Washington DC (05-06-13)

Monument Day: The day we walked 5 miles to see all the monuments.  Ok, not all of them.  We didn’t walk the extra mile to see the Jefferson Memorial, but maybe we’ll get a chance before we leave.

We walked down Pennsylvania Avenue and dutifully took our pictures of the White House. 

We couldn’t get too close to the front yard- we could get closer in the backyard, for some reason.

I zoomed in really close and took a picture of the sniper on top of the White House.









We spent hours walking up and down the National Mall.  Don’t think stores- think Memorials and Monuments.  On the way there we passed through a really cool sculpture garden:

stainless steel tree

old fashioned typewriter eraser

 

The World War II Memorial is really well done.  I have an App on my phone that has a map of the Mall, and short blurbs about each of the monuments/memorials.  The amount of thought that went into the design of this one  is amazing.

  Every part of the monument has meaning, it seems. For instance, the 56 columns (stalae) represent the states, territories, and the District of Columbia, arranged according to when they joined the Union.

Each star on the Freedom wall represents 100 people who died in the war.

The Mall is a very busy place.  While we were there, an outdoor yoga class was taking place, as well as a celebration of Cinco de Mayo. I am not sure I’d be interested in a yoga class where the instructor is using a microphone with massive speakers, but then, I don’t do yoga.

   

The Lincoln Memorial is as massive as ever, really huge and somehow awe inspiring, with his immortal words carved into the nearby granite for all to read.

The view from beneath the columns of the Lincoln Memorial was pretty impressive as well.  It doesn’t show as well in the picture but behind the Washington Memorial is the Capitol Building.  The Washington Memorial is closed due to damage from an earth quake two years ago.  There is scaffolding surrounding the exterior.

  These larger-than-life stainless steel servicemen represent the Korean War veterans, trudging through the windy and cold terrain. 

My dad was in the service during the Korean War, although he was lucky enough to be stationed in Boston, his home town.












Most people are familiar with the Vietnam Wall, inscribed with the names of the 58,000+ service members who died in the Vietnam War.  Young schoolchildren wrote and left notes written to individual people on the wall, thanking them.

In addition to the “major” memorials, there are lots of lesser known ones.  We stopped by the Memorial to the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence.

Every day, on the way in to town, we pass right by the U.S. Navy Memorial. We finally stopped today to wander through part of it, but we need to stop and take a better look.  It started to rain while we were there.

More Military Stuff (GA 03-23-13)

Fort Pulaski

Visiting nearby Tybee Island was on our list of “must do” things while in the Savannah area, but we held off, waiting for better weather.  Finally we had no choice- we headed to Tybee even though it was still pretty cold-and very windy- out.  We did a drive by of the island but since it wasn’t a beach day, we elected to head to Fort Pulaski (yes, yet another fort).

  I admit, I feel like I’ve seen enough forts for a while, but Paul really enjoys them, and the weather was not cooperating, so what the heck. It turned out to be one of my favorite fort visits. After the war of 1812, President Madison ordered the construction of a series of coastal fortifications, to protect the U.S. against foreign invasion. It was during that time period- 1829- that construction of Fort Pulaski began. After 30 years, this state-of-the-art fort was finished.

The fort is still in remarkable condition and is a great example of a Civil War era fort.  After the war, the fort was abandoned and not used again, so it never had additions or modifications done to update it for more modern warfare.

It still boasts a drawbridge and moat.

 

The interior parade grounds- each of the arched doorways would have had doors like the gray door in this picture.  They were all numbered, to keep confusion to a minimum, and a commander would say “go get me the rifles behind door 13”.

We took an awesome ranger guided tour of the fort where we learned that these wooden boards, called Blindage, would be put up all along the interior walls, then dirt would be piled up about to about halfway up the wood.  That essentially made the interior bomb proof.  Or so they thought.

So, that brings us to the role that Fort Pulaski played during the Civil War. 

Originally this fort was designed to hold more than 40 cannons and hundreds of men, but because it wasn’t actually needed for defense when it was finished, only two caretakers were sent to occupy the fort. It sits at the mouth of the Savannah River, protecting, in part, the port of Savannah.  In 1860, nearby South Carolina seceded from the Union, and anticipating that Georgia would soon follow in South Carolina’s footsteps, Georgia’s governor ordered that the fort be taken.  It wasn’t difficult, since, as I mentioned, there were only two caretakers there.

Fast forward to 1861. The Union army has decided that they need to secure access to the port of Savannah, so they set up an army of men on nearby Tybee Island.  Meanwhile, Robert E. Lee, one of the original architects of Fort Pulaski, comes to assess the fort’s defenses .  He assures the commander that the fort is impenetrable. Unfortunately, he did not know about a new invention- rifled artillery. I have mentioned before that it boggled my mind that forts in the 1700-1800s were built over a period of 20-30 years, and they were state of the art at the time they were built, but the minute rifled artillery was introduced, all forts became obsolete.  The Battle of Fort Pulaski played a huge role in that part of history.  It was here that the Union army decided to test the use of rifled artillery.  They pounded on the fort, firing over 5000 cannon shots, mostly trying to hit the same area of the of the wall. Within 30 hours they had drilled a hole clear through the wall of the fort. The Confederates didn’t surrender at this point, but they did soon after. 



Paul in the Powder Magazine



Why?  Because a cannon ball came through the opening in the fort, and landed in the hallway that led to the powder magazine.  A magazine that held 40,000 lbs of gun powder.  The white flag flew shortly thereafter.

The success of rifled artillery in this battle brought warfare into a whole new era, immediately transforming most existing forts into historic relics.

Mighty 8th Air Force Museum

 

Moving on from the Civil War to World War II, we took advantage of yet another rainy day to tour the Mighty 8th Air Force Museum.

The 8th airborne flew out of Savannah and were stationed in England during World War II. Paul enjoyed the museum tremendously and surprisingly, I found quite a few exhibits very interesting. I liked this one just because it was cool looking.

   

Inside the museum there were two rooms that were set up like a small French Safe House.  On the walls were pictures and notes  that told the personal stories of people who risked their lives to rescue and hide downed pilots from the Germans. Some people went so far as to build secret rooms in their homes, and some individuals helped rescue and return more than 100 pilots to England.

The first women to fly for the U.S. Military were the Fly Girls of World War II.  Due to a shortage of pilots, over 1000 women were trained to fly advanced military aircraft. Once trained, they took over such jobs as flying new aircraft from factory to air base.  One of their most dangerous jobs was Target Pilot.  They would fly planes towing targets behind them so that anti-aircraft and aerial gunners could practice using their weapons- using live ammunition.

38 of these women died in the line of duty, but because they were considered civilians, they weren’t accorded military benefits- there was no insurance, and the military didn’t even pay to have their coffins sent home.  Decades later, they were all awarded military recognition for their role in World War II.

One final day in New Orleans (04-01-11)

        Our last day in New Orleans the weather finally played a role in our plans.  It was cool and drizzly but we knew in advance that it would be that way so we had saved the museum for last.  Last but not least, as they say.  It was a World War II museum that displayed a chronological timeline of the war in a way that was interesting and kept my attention. In fact, we ran out of time and didn't see all the exhibits.  We started by watching the movie to get an overview, and it was awesome.  More than a movie actually, it was a "4-D" experience that started with a spotlight on an old fashioned console radio (like the one we had when we were kids) and the broadcast of a football game.  Then, of course, came the interruption announcing that Pearl Harbor had been attacked. It was mesmerizing.
     I got a better understanding of the absolute enormity of this war and it's impact on everyone. I had heard stories from my parents, but they were both teenagers at the time, so they had a young persons perspective. 
I knew that Japan obviously played a key role in the war but I learned more details about how what they did as a country "pushed" the U.S. into reacting the way it did, both at the beginning of the war and at the end. In 1945 the Japanese people had made clear by their actions that they were all willing to fight to the death to protect their country and their emperor.  They had both sustained  and inflicted incredible losses to that point and American casualties were likely to be in the millions if we proceeded with the planned land invasion.  So, we dropped the atomic bomb instead.  Whether it was right or wrong, it did end the war that had already cost the lives of over 50 million people.
   We couldn't leave New Orleans without a trip down Frenchmen Street.  Unlike the Bourbon Street music venues that loudly compete for your attention, Frenchmen Street is full of smaller jazz clubs quietly inviting you in for a listen. We obliged and listened to Saxophonist Jerry Jumonville and the Jump City Band at La Maison before heading to dinner at the Praline Connection. There were also many street performers here, creating a casual, fun atmosphere.
    So, now we have left New Orleans and headed across Texas towards Oklahoma.  We have about 2 weeks to get to Muncie IN and we've decided to do it by way of OK and Kansas.