And 'cause I know you guys are dying to see them, here's some pictures of my D.C. trip!
This is the Marine Corp Memorial; probably my favorite memorial out of the ones we visited. The image is basically the planting of the American flag at the top of the volcano on the island of Iwo Jima. These soldiers represent the ultimate sacrifices of the Marines who have already passed, and the inevitable sacrifices of those who will follow...All in all, it was a very peaceful memorial.
...XD I dubbed this "The Canada Building". I have no idea what it's for (it's not the house where the Canadian dignitary lived), but it looked really cool with all the flags on the roof.
The WWII Memorial. Kind of surreal, and a little sad. You could see all the veterans walking around...Each state and territory belonging to the U.S.A. is represented by a wreath for their contributions to the war. The wreaths all have different meanings, but I'm no expert. Georgia mainly contributed arms and man-power. You can also see the Washington Monument in the background.
This is a wall at the WWII Memorial. It actually has a much larger span, and each golden star represents 100 dead American soldiers. The motionless water below symbolizes peace.
At the Vietnam Memorial, one of our chaperons told us a story about her father, who fought in the Vietnam War. Back in the day, he was, I believe, a Lieutenant, and he was the leader of a group of 17-19-year-old boys. They experienced many strange things in the jungles of Vietnam; once, they paused, thinking they could hear Viet Cong soldiers approaching, and a tiger walked right across the path directly in front of them. However, on this particular night, they were fairly sure the footsteps belonged to humans. While they tensed, waiting for the inevitable action, a hand grenade flew out at the Lieutenant. One of his men saw this and reacted too swiftly for anyone to stop him. Pushing the Lieutenant out of the way, he threw himself onto the grenade.
His name was Ronald A. Sapp. He knew the Lieutenant had a wife and four children waiting at home for him, our teacher included, and though he probably had family of his own waiting for him to return, he chose to save the Lieutenant's life at the cost of his own.
That was the worst news the Lieutenant had ever had to carry home. The Lieutenant did survive the war, but he passed two years ago of cancer caused by Agent Orange.
Naturally, despite most of us not having relatives who fought in the Vietnam War (I had a great-uncle), we were all pretty much hysterical by the end of this story.
~Tobi~
~I have 600+ pics of this trip...XD I don't think I can post all of them.~