Ammon:
Went to the Arlington Cemetery and watched the guards of the Unknown Soldier Tomb change. Took an Uber to Ford’s Theatre. Did a tour about Abraham Lincoln, and saw the Presidential box where Abe was shot. I thought it was cool how the gun that… let go of Abe’s life is in the basement underneath the theatre. We were all tired so we went back to the hotel. We had this yummy Afghan food and went back to the hotel.
LaReita:
We went to the 9am Arlington Ward sacrament meeting. It’s the oldest operating church building east of the Mississippi. A beautifully building fully designed and built by the members in the 1940s before the corporate church took over such functions. Ammon didn’t mention it because he slept nearly the whole time 🙂 The 2 ward members who came to introduce themselves said their ward is a revolving door of Utah lawyers and Department of Defense employees. Just a fact, not a complaint.
Arlington Cemetery was bigger than I anticipated. Pictures really can’t capture it all – the scope and the reverence. Saw JFK’s burial site with the eternal flame and 3 JFK quotes carved in stone. Same for RFK’s site as well. While reading and pondering on the quotes I realized that people don’t talk like this anymore. People don’t read like that anymore. I’m one of ‘those people’ and I need to mend my ways and start reading more.
The changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was particularly poignant for me now that we are a military family. These guards study and train for 9 months before they are allowed to take a shift. A few months ago the first fully female detachment was assigned to guard the tomb. I found that appropriate since mothers will stay up all night with their hurting, sick child. Why not an all-female guard to watch over their fallen comrades?
There was so much to see and learn at Arlington that we had to skip our planned White House Visitor’s Center, and we went straight to Ford’s Theatre (where Lincoln was assassinated). I hadn’t realized there were multiple conspirators who had planned the same night to also assassinate the Vice President and Secretary of State (Seward – who facilitated the purchase of Alaska).
We were so exhausted by 3:30 we called it a day and went back to the hotel. Did laundry and walked to a local Afghan restaurant.