Notes from Washington

Nothing like being unfashionably late to a party.  

Yes, I realize it's been nearly two months since I last made an appearance in Blogville.

 I'm not really back yet, either.

I just wanted to drop by before it was too late to join
 the Note Card Party at 

A Haven For Vee. 

My cards this month might more rightly be called  post cards.  They were taken during an adventure in Washington D.C.  Per Vee's new rules, I was allowed to use a few photographs which haven't been shared before.  The new ones were taken at the war memorials on the Washington mall.

This one is haunting, isn't it?

I thought about trying to crop the tourists out of the this next one, but it seems to me that there has been more than enough of that tourist cropping going on in Washington these days.

Some folks are pretty uptight about all that.

In fact, some  are more than uptight. They are downright angry that anyone would deny veterans the right to visit a memorial that was not only built for them, but by them, one battlefield at a time.

Maybe you're one of the angry ones.  

That's OK, I'm pretty ticked off too.  

But if you are, I have a question for you:

Before the veterans were shut out, 

did you know they were brought in?

Well, now you do. 

And now that you do, what are you prepared to do about it?

Those veterans, you see, are actually transported to Washington through the efforts of private citizens in a program called Honor Flight. It isn't a government program. If it were, don't you think the whole trip would have been shut down?  

Yeah, I think so too.

Let's face it.  It's easy to get angry. It's even easier to join arms with other angry people and call it righteous anger. Trust me, I'm well practiced at that.  What isn't always easy is putting our money where our mouth is. 

Here's the thing: When the smoke clears and all the silly barricades have been taken down...and the talking heads are talking about something else... and we the people have found some new cause to champion... 

There will still be veterans who want to visit their memorial in Washington, DC. 

The only  barricade standing in their way is the money to get there.  

I encourage you, friends, to click THIS LINK and read all about the Honor Flights.  I hope that you stay long enough to find out how to donate your time and resources to give our honored veterans a tangible gift of gratitude for their sacrifice and service.  If we're really passionate about the soldier's right to see his memorial, let's go the extra mile and pay his way to get there.

Unless, of course, the anger really had nothing to do with the veterans at all.