Arlington Cemetery.

We left the kids at home again and headed back downtown for a long day of monument seeing.  We took the train down to visit a friend from Ohio for breakfast then headed to Arlington Ce metery.

 I've never been to Arlington, so I was glad to get there and check one more thing off our DC bucket list.  Here's JFK's grave.  I think the house up there is belonged to Robert E. Lee.  I do know that he owned the property and after the Civil War, the government seized it and made it into a cemetery for Union soldiers.

 A view of the city from a hill.

We saw some of the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, but it was packed and we really couldn't see anything.

 We did make it a point to visit the memorials for the Challenger and Columbia astronauts.

 Stanley wanted to pose with the canons and original mast of the USS Maine, which was sunk in Cuba in 1898.   (Remember the phrase: "Remember the Maine!"?) 

 We took a nice, but windy walk across th Potomac and headed to the Lincoln Memorial.

Stand up straight, Stanley!

 We visited the Vietnam Memorial.  It was interesting to be with my parents, who have vivid memories of life during the Vietnam War.  We found the names of people they both knew.  Larry Wolfrum is about 9 lines from the top, in one of the light parts.

 Herman Hesselschwardt.  

I've had a similar experience with Henry recently.  He's really into this book series called "I Survived." They are historical fiction accounts of events such as the sinking of the Titanic to Hurricane Katrina and the 9/11 Attacks.  Henry was pretty shocked when I told him Brandon and I remember the 9/11 attacks.  I guess when you're a kid, you figure everything is ancient history.

Of all the books, Henry was really taken with the Pearl Harbor Attack.  He's now very interested in the Eastern front of WWII.  Combined with my recent trip to Korea (we'll get there), and my new knowledge of Korean history, he's been lapping up as much information as he can get his hands on.  I think we're going to have a history major on our hands.