I breezed through DC on my way back from Philadelphia, and toured around the mall for a few hours with my cousin, his wife, and their two-year-old. It was the opening weekend of the National Cherry Blossom Festival, the beginning or the end of spring break, depending on where you were from, and the opening night of the Nationals baseball season (I think we may have seen Marine One ferrying Bush to the stadium to get booed when he walked out to throw the first pitch). There were a lot of people walking around admiring the flowery trees.
Just before we got to the White House, we braved the narrow walkway in front of the Vietnam Memorial wall. We’d just about emerged, when I saw a skinny, bespectacled 10-year old boy ask his mother why they only made memorials for the dead soldiers and not for the ones who fought and lived.