Memorial Day

Well, there's never a shortage of things to do in DC, and that certainly applies to Memorial Day weekend as well. I was on-call Saturday night (as I said yesterday), but was recovered by yesterday evening, to go to the National Memorial Day Concert at the Capitol. It started at 8, so we got there at 5 so we could get a patch of grass to sit on. Anyway, to say that it was an amazing concert would be an understatement. In addition to the music, they had short scenes (I don't know what the correct drama term would be... not really scenes, not dialogs... more like interweaving monologs) of real stories, by famous actors (such as Gary Sinise, who was one of the hosts; the guy from The Unit who also does the All-State commercials; some people from Criminal Minds, etc)--and the real people of these stories (the ones who were still alive) were sitting in the audience, with the camera panning to them at the end. Very emotional stuff.

This was the view from where we sat:

And of course, the Capitol itself.

The U.S. Army Drum and Bugle Corps was there as well. I have some pictures of the buglers, too, but here are some drummers:

That was yesterday, and today, I met up with Melanie and her friends (who better to spend Memorial Day with than someone with a Master's in Military History?) at the WWII Memorial for the ceremony at 0900. There was a brass quintet from the Army Field Band, in addition to the color guard and wreath-laying ceremonies, and it ended with elementary school students around the memorial with pictures of service members who had died in the war, one from each state and territory, in front of the pillar for that state (I guess that sentence only makes sense if you have seen the memorial).

After that, we wandered around, killing time in the oppressive heat before the Vietnam Memorial ceremony at 1300, so we went through the Korean War memorial to read the wreaths. Here's one from the 25th Infantry Division:

For those of you who watch Criminal Minds, this guy should look familiar. Joe Mantegna hosted the concert last night with Gary Sinise (aka Det. Mac Taylor, aka Lt. Dan), then was one of the keynote speakers at the WWII ceremony this morning (his father and four uncles all served in WWII; he brought one of those uncles to the ceremony), he was at the Vietnam ceremony (and that's quite the ceremony, by the way), and he was in the parade. It's nice to see that kind of support for veterans and fallen service members.