Day of Honor and Remembrance

Today--after a quick jaunt through the Smithsonian butterfly garden--Chadd and I took a tour to Arlington National Cemetery. Since the city was beginning its preparations for Inauguration day, the tour was not able to operate as usual. We were stuck in stand still traffic for over an hour, but the wait was worth it.
At Arlington, over 300,000 soldiers, spouses, and political officials are buried on the 650 acre grounds. There is no way one person could possibly take in all of the sights this cemetery has to offer. Some of whom include: JFK, William Howard Taft, all members of the U.S.S. Maine, and tomb of the unknown soldier.
The tomb of the unknown soldier is an absolutely breathtaking memorial, as it sits atop the cemetery looking down upon Washington D.C. By order of the president, a member of the 3rd Brigade guards the tomb 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The soldier paces 21 steps and pauses 21 seconds in honor of the 21 gun salute. Every hour, the soldiers perform a Changing of the Guards ceremony. Chadd and I were able to catch the last public ceremony before dark.
Our bus tour also took us to the Korean War Memorial and the Vietnam War Memorial. Although both places were crowded with people, everyone still took time to observe and respect the significance of the memorial. I was surprised at how big the Vietnam wall actually was! Unfortunately, its massive size puts into perspective how many brave soldiers lost their lives in that war.
Since tomorrow was going to be such a big day, we decided to turn in early. However, that idea was quickly spoiled whenever we approached our bus to return home and watched it promptly pull out of sight. That's right, the bus left us! (And we were two minutes early) And to think, that driver missed out on a generous tip. . .