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We made it to Arlington with just a small incident on the way! We were staying with Karen who Russ met in Bolivia 6 years ago! She had to work late so we decided to visit Arlington cemetery on the way. Before that we found ourselves at the American Air Force memorial which was very interesting for us and the location gave us a fine view of the Pentagon building and Washington DC.
Arlington cemetery was a very moving place for two ex-military people to visit. We spent a good couple of hours wandering around and paying our respects to the fallen heroes of the US armed forces. White gravestones as far as the eye can see is an emotional sight. We hadn't realised that JFK was buried there along with most of the Kennedy family. Seeing the "Changing of the Guard" ceremony was good too. It takes place every half an hour at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
From there we tried to find Karen's place - without a map!! It was all going so well until we had to turn left at a green light. Doesn't sound too bad but we tried to beat the oncoming
traffic only to find a wall of pedestrians in our way! Whoops - got that one very wrong!! And all under the watchful eyes of a police officer who was not impressed. At least we got off with a warning - phew!!!
About an hour North of Washington DC, into Maryland, is the National Security Agency (NSA) and their
Cryptology Museum. For us it was really interesting but if you have no interest in the history of spying or cryptology, it's probably not worth the trip out. Seeing the
Enigma machine was really cool and there were many great exhibits there. The mathematics of code breaking does get tiring after a while though!! The nearby
Vigilance Park has aircraft which were used in spy ops over the years. The C-130 Hercules is a particularly moving monument as one of those was shot down over Soviet Armenia in the early 1970s with the loss of all on board.
On our way back to Arlington we called in to the park where the US Marine Corps monument is located. This marvellous sculpture represents a scene from the battle of Iwo Jima and it's well worth a trip to see it.
So that was our military memorials visit. Next blog - Washington DC, home of democracy!!
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Richard Brisson
non-member comment
Photo with Enigma Caption
Nicely put together with NCM photos. One correction though - where you have the caption "Enigma", it's actually a German crypto device called TUNNY (part of the Geheimschreiber family) which was different from the actual Enigma although they both used the principle of rotors. Best regards, Richard B. Web: www.campx.ca