Veterans Day Observances 2010

photo by M.V. JantzenThere's perhaps no better place to celebrate Veterans's Day and to remember those who served than Washington, DC. We're chock full of Memorials to various wars, branches of service, units, military notables, and so on.

Tomorrow will be the ground breaking of a new memorial in the nation's capital: the Disabled Veterans' Disabled for Life Memorial. Actor Gary Sinise, who played a disabled veterans in Forest Gump and who is deeply involved in veteran's causes, will headline the ceremony, which starts at 10:30 tomorrow. The Memorial will be near the Botanic Gardens, on the corner of 2nd St and Washington Ave SW. Nearest Metro is Federal Center SW.

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A Day in DC: Taking in the Memorials

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Some time ago, I sketched out a sample itinerary for a day in DC focused on Capitol Hill that combined a bit of the National stuff that you’ve come to see with a little of the local color that humanizes the experience and makes your visit more memorable. So in that vein, let’s lay out another day, taking in the Memorials in the morning and a little of DC the rest of the day.

We’ll kick off at the Foggy Bottom Metro Stop on the Orange and Blue lines. We got a lot of walking to do this morning, and I don’t know about you, but I can’t do it without a cup of coffee. DC has some top notch coffee shops, but as we’re not near any of them now we’ll make do with the Starbucks at the GWU Hospital. We’re heading south on 23rd (downhill) towards the Lincoln Memorial. As we head down 23rd, you may want to swing by the Columbia Plaza shopping center (just past Virginia Ave) and pick up some water or other supplies. We’ll be walking a good chunk of the morning and pickings are scarce on the Mall.

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Booze, Fireworks, What Could Go Wrong?

photo uploaded to flickr by jGregor

Ahh, the Fourth of July. One of the great American holidays, when we celebrate overthrowing our British overlords, who had kept us in a state of perennial submission, what with their onerous tax on tea and refusing to let us riot. My latent sarcasm aside, it's a great holiday and appeals to my sense of rebelliousness and wanton hunger to watch things explode.

Unfortunately, my idea of a great Fourth is to blow a couple hundred bucks in South Carolina for enough fireworks to make the defenders of Ft. McHenry think twice about holding out next time, ideally accompanied with beer and small kids. Naturally, I follow strict safety rules, like "no firing bottle rockets at your sister" and "hold my beer while I light the finale". After all, I'm a responsible parent now.

Now if you find yourself in Washington, DC for the Fourth, and especially if you find yourself in a neighborhood that is, shall we say, less touristy, you'll find yourself enjoying an experience much like I described above, although perhaps with less of a strict regard for safety. Be forewarned, and rest secure that you're still in a country that if King George tries to quarter his troops in our homes, he'll find a warm welcome. However, if re-enacting Beirut circa 1984 isn't your cup of tea let me offer a few suggestions:

1. A Capitol Fourth: The annual concert on the West Front of the Capitol will be hosted this year by Jimmy Smits. It's a great free concert, this year featuring Reba McEntire, Gladys Knight, Darius Rucker, and the National Symphony Orchestra. It kicks off at 8:00 pm, but if you think you're showing up at 7:45 and finding a spot on the lawn you're woefully optimistic. The security gates open at 3:00 pm, and I'd say you might want to be there at around 5 if you're looking for a spot to have a picnic. For a truly local take on this, come the night before and watch the free rehearsal. Most of the headliners won't be there, but they'll be a lot less crowds.

2. Fireworks!: If your taste runs towards the "professional" displays, and away from burnt fingers, the annual DC Fireworks display is pretty impressive. They are set off near the World War II memorial, just to the west of the Washington Monument right around 9:15 pm. Popular vistas often go quickly, but a good rule of thumb is that if you can see the Monument clearly, you'll be able to see the fireworks. Folks will start camping out on the Mall fairly early in the day, and this year, the Smithsonian Folklife Festival will run on the Fourth for your viewing pleasure. Also, if you need to kill time, the White House Visitor's Center and the National Archives will be hosting special events that day. Be ready though: getting nearly a million people out of the city at one time can be a bit tricky. Plan on the Metro being packed and a bit of a wait. If you drove AND found a parking space, you're going to be there till dawn.

3. Parades: Everyone loves a good parade, and the National Independence Day Parade fits the bill. It runs along Constitution Avenue from 7th to 17th ST NW starting at 11:45. Filled with all the pomp and circumstance the US government can round up, it's a stirring site with marching bands, military honor guards, floats, and all that good stuff. But if you want a less monumental and more authentic experience, swing on down to Barracks Row (8th ST SE, just feet away from the Eastern Market Metro Station) for the Capitol Hill Parade. Kicking off at 10:00 (give or take) by the historic Marine Barracks at 8th and I SE, the parade features and eclectic mix of neighborhood schools, organizations, and just a bunch of people out to have a good time, like the local moms who find a creative use for bridesmaid dresses "you can wear again" as the Fairy Princess Patrol. If you are like so many of my visitors who are lost in a maze of marbled columns and ask "does anyone live in Washington", come here for your answer. And while I've never been to it, I hear good things about the Takoma Park Parade as well.

4. For the Fireworks Haters: If you're looking to branch out in a new direction for your Fourth celebration, consider swinging by the National Cathedral. They will be hosting a recital of their incomparable 10,000 pipe organ at 2 pm this Sunday. Sure, it's a bit non-traditional, but you won't have to jockey for position in the sun, either. And if you stick around, the Cathedral grounds aren't a bad place to catch the fireworks (I recommend finding a spot near the Peace Cross on the grounds of St. Alban's school).

Whatever your plans for the Fourth of July in DC are, be sure to approach them with good humor and patience. Crowds and hot weather are part of the game here, so come ready to cope with both, but DC is one of the best places in the country to experience the Fourth. Enjoy, I'm off to South Carolina.

Knocking out the Memorials - the World War II Memorial

I don't know if you've noticed a common thread as we've been taking you through the history of the various Memorials and Monuments, but you might have picked up by now that, almost uniformly, they all had controversies surrounding the location, design, construction, and so on. Except, to the best of my knowledge, the Korean Veterans Memorial. Perhaps it was forgotten.

But we rebound strongly with our next one, the National World War II Memorial. Obviously, no one objected to the choice to build a memorial honoring those who fought in the Second World War (or at least no one who we have to listen to), but the choice of its location, at the end of the Reflecting Pool, between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial, caused a titanic debate, with some even arguing that its location "defaces a National treasure".

Now I too was skeptical about it's location, but I'm a believer. First off, the final design, that which was ultimately built, is far less obtrusive than the original plan. The built Memorial nicely frames the Washington Monument when viewed from Lincoln. Secondly, as arguably the most pivotal crisis of the 20th Century, World War II very much belongs with our first President and the man who brought us through the Civil War. And finally, it looks a whole lot better than the broken down and deserted fountain it replaced.

I'm less complimentary about another element of its design. The Memorial is flanked by 56 pillars, representing the 48 states and 8 territories that comprised the United States at the time. I don't get this. Unlike the Korean Memorial, where depicting the various races in the sculptures was a nod towards the desegregation of the military, World War II had no specific nexus with the states. Why not list all the counties, while your at it. I understand the whole "we were separate states but came together as one nation" argument, but that's really not a part of the World War II narrative. Once federalized early in the War, even National Guard units rapidly lost much of their state identities, especially when replacement troops began being assigned.

But my aesthetic whining aside, this is a fitting tribute to the overplayed but still valid label of the "Greatest Generation". I've had some rewarding times as a tour guide, but none more so than having the privilege of taking a bus load of World War II veterans there last month. To see their impressions first hand, and to get to hear their accounts, was far more valuable than any stories or tales I could add. As he so often is, Senator Dole was on hand, with his wife Senator Dole, to great the veterans personally. It was a very moving moment. Then my bus blocked Sen. Dole's car in.

While the odds are not bad that you might see the Senator at the Memorial, prudence demands that you have a back up plan for visiting. Yes, yes, go and see your state's pillar. Now that that's out of system, you will of course want to see Freedom Wall, where each gold star represent 100 Americans killed. No, I'm not going to tell you how many there at; count them yourself. The gold star was a symbol displayed in one's house when a family member had been killed in the War; sadly the tradition continues today. Also make sure to see the excellent bas-relief sculptures along the entrance towards 17th St. And, of course, you must go around the back and witness the "graffiti" carved in the rear. Paying homage to the more irreverent nature of the young men and women of the War is an engraved Kilroy Was Here, a critical reminder that in the midst of all the marble and bronze, real people, with human foibles, accomplished so much.

A Walking Tour of the National Mall Bathrooms

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Any tour guide can take you around the Mall and show you the monuments. Bah, I laugh at them. Instead, let us today take a walking tour of the bathrooms of the National Mall. Bathrooms on the Mall are few and far between and generally bad, so we'll want to plan ahead. For our immediate purposes, we'll pass on those east of 14th St, as the Smithsonian's line the mall that way and they like nothing better than being viewed as a giant pee break.

Let us, instead, start at the Washington Monument kiosk, on 15th St. Recently restored, this is not a bad option if you have to go. It's generally clean and well stocked, even with moderate to high traffic.

Which is good, because you don't want to stop at the next one. Tucked in the trees behind the Sylvan Theater near Independence Ave, lurks one of the circular 1960s bathrooms the Park Service maintains. Now, I can only assume Historic Preservation laws prevent this from being rehabilitated, as it almost always has out of order facilities and is consistantly dirty. I do like it aesthetically; it reminds me of the Jetsons and flying cars and hundred story skyscrapers and all the ways people in the '60s thought we were going to live today. But as a toilet facility, it stinks.

Next up is our only real Museum option. The Holocaust Memorial Museum is worthy of it's own trip but if you happen to be walking by and need to go, it's an option. You'll have to go through security, so keep that in mind. You can either go in the cafe (seperate building to the left) or the Museum proper. In the Museum go down the stairs and take a left. The restrooms are quite well taken care of.

You've got a good stretch ahead of you to the next one. The Jefferson Memorial has restrooms on the ground level. They have maintenance problems and are often broken but the Park Service tries hard to stay on top of it.

Keep strolling and you get to one of my favorite Memorials, Franklin Delano Roosevelt's. It's so sprawling it has two separate facilities, one on either end. And unlike the fountains of the Memorial, these actually work. Wow, it's nice to go to a Memorial and not have to plan bathroom breaks around it.

If you're following the map, you've reached the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial. As this does not exist yet, I can't yet give an opinion. But in addition to the well deserved Memorial, I look forward to new restroom options.

Fortunately, a short walk away is the World War II memorial. As you head along Home Front Drive (hey, I didn't pick the name), the restrooms are at the end of the bus drop off area. They're newish, so they still work. And it has one of the few working drinking fountains on the Mall. Take a picture. You're not going to another one for awhile.

Do your business now, because options are going to dry up. Our next stop is the Lincoln Memorial. I'd like to show you the excellent DC World War I and Korean War Memorials along the way, but they don't have restrooms so they're out. Now, at Lincoln, I hope it's an emergency because chances are good there's a line for the bathroom. The best I can say is that sometimes the standing water discourages the line. The Park Service tries, but this one gets way too much traffic to stay very functional. It really should be shut down and renovated, but there's nothing else to take it's place.

We're almost done. You might be tempted to cross Henry Bacon Drive across from the Vietnam Memorial. After all, just like across from the Korean Memorial, there's clearly a newly constructed kiosk there. Surely, they wouldn't build new kiosks as part of a multi-million dollar restoration and not bother to put bathrooms in them? Nope, just $18 disposable cameras and surly staff. Maybe they're unhappy at the lack of restrooms, too?

Your last option, if I could call it that, is in Constitution Gardens. Hiding in the woods as if the Park Service is ashamed of it, is the long lost brother of the circular one by the Washington Monument. Hell, this one isn't even open sometimes so you're not missing much here.

But let's end on a positive note. The National Park Service is committed to improving the situation and has a plan for upgrades. I'll be watching this as it progresses and let you know how it goes. Help is on the way! You might just have to hold it until then.