Memorials at Night

Sunday 11th June
Arrived in Washington DC and decided to go and looked at some of the monuments, first up was The Iwo Jima Memorial, which is the Marine Corps Memorial. Iwo Jima was a small Pacific island that saw fierce fighting during WW11 resulting in 7000 American deaths. This was a fantastically imposing statue. We managed to arrive just as the sun was setting, which added to the atmosphere.

Next up, was the Thomas Jefferson Memorial which was inspired by the Pantheon in Rome. It houses a 19ft bronze statue of the President. Jefferson was seen as one of the greatest influences of American history, he wrote the ‘Declaration of American Independence’, and was a strong believer in the rights of man, a government derived from the people, and religious freedom: ideas that were way ahead of his time! Interestingly, he died on July 4th 1826, the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

The last memorial we saw was the WW11 one, recently built and opened on Memorial Day, May 29th 2004. This was amazing. Each state was represented by a column which surrounded a fountain in the centre. On each column there was a wreath of oak and wheat, which symbolised the nation’s industrial and agricultural strength, both of which were essential to the success of the war. There was a wall of 4000 gold stars with each star representing 1000 American deaths, to total the 400000 lost in WW11. I loved this memorial, and after nearly 20 years of visiting war memorials this was one of my favourites!