#85 - Revisit the Vietnam Memorial in D.C.

Last month for Spring Break, Tommy and I traveled all the way to Washington, D.C., because he had never been!! We went to all the monuments, the National Gallery, the Phillips Collection, the National Archives, and the Sculpture Garden - I'd been to all of them and dragged Tommy along to all my art museums, though he was really stoked about Roy Lichtenstein's America (the optical illusion house in the garden).

I remembered that I had listed the Vietnam War memorial as an item on my 99 in 999 list, so I suggested to Tommy that we end our excursion with Lincoln and the memorials before heading home. My biological grandfather died while in Vietnam, and Tommy's grandfather served in the Korean war (which is also memorialized), so we both had roots there. I've been trying to find out more about him lately, I guess in an effort to find out more about why I am the way I am. My dad was adopted and my mom's bio dad died in Vietnam during the war, and though both sets of  grandparents who I am born to are my family and I have so many of their traits, there's this genetic heritage that I have always wondered about. I feel that it is okay to be curious about where you come from, while loving, keeping, and claiming the family heritage you were born to. Nevertheless, I've felt attached to the Wall, that a part of my blood-heritage is there. It also makes me proud and grateful to be American.