The Korean War Veterans Memorial is probably my favorite memorial. I take the opportunity to explain some interesting facts about this memorial to the students near me. There are 19 servicemen from multiple branches of the military walking through the bogs. They are reflected on a polished granite wall of photos.
The 19 men and their reflections represent the 38th parallel, the dividing line of North and South Korea. I, also, asked them to walk around the memorial and stop periodically. Once stopped, look at the soldiers. There is not one point on that triangle that you can stop without having at least one pair of eyes looking back at you. This is reflective of the environment that soldiers face and that you must trust your friends and keep your eyes open.
The Lincoln Memorial is the next stop on the walk. This massive structure is inspiring to look at. Everyone pretends to be Rocky as they climb the stairs to the building.
Once inside the monument, there is plenty for the students to read. Right! We have to tell them there is a spelling error on one of the stone tablets, but you have to read them to find it. This is of course true, but the goal is to get them to read the inscriptions. The error is in the pictures. I bet they wished they had white out or something when the carved it.
We now make our way down the path to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The student have the opportunity to look for some names of soldiers from the Milwaukee area and create pencil rubbings of their assigned name from the wall. This is a simple but moving memorial.
After the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, we continue our somber tour to the Holocaust Museum. The students get to walk through the Daniel’s Story exhbit and learn about this young man’s experience through the concentration camps. Out of respect I will not post any pictures from this memorial.
Finally, a high note, quite literally. Our last stop for the day is the National Air and Space Museum. We let the kids go off and explore some of the interesting facts and history of flight. This is a great way to get a little excitement back in them as we head into the last day of the trip.
Mount Vernon and the Capital building await us on the last day.
On the Road Again! 