Tour of the Arlington National Cemetery

Short visit to the Air & Space Museum

Thursday, 13 Jul 2023

Once again, we drove to the Franconia/Springfield station & caught the blue line into the City. We had a tour reservation through Viator (booked through Chase using points). It was extremely hot, but we were still very very pleased that we had done this walking tour. Our guide was Jim & he was extremely knowledgeable. He had 30+ relatives buried here & had been doing this tour for 7 years. Before that he had trained the guys on the motorized train tour. He had background stories about almost everything monument we passed! It was really incredible. He led us much of the time walking backwards. Scary, but he has obviously been doing that for a long time, so he was competent & secure with his actions!

Female Guardian of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The walk the mat is 21 steps and when they turn, they face the tomb for 21 seconds. Everything being done in 21's to liken to the highest of honor - the 21 gun salute.

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. We watched the changing of the guard - done every 30 minutes during high season - not due to the heat or for the soldiers, but to allow crowd control!

Pentagon in the distance.

Audie Murphy - a must see marker - used to be the most decorated soldier - now he's the 2nd most decorated. But still definitely the most famous. Garlin Murl Conner is actually the most decorated now, since his Distinguished Service Cross was upgraded to a Medal of honor on 26 Jun 2018.

Headstone for a combined grave. Jim explained that occasionally it would be decided to bury a group that had all died together in the same grave. Sadly, it was sometimes it was because their remains were intertwined.

It is possible to donate something in memoriam to an individual - tree, bench, something - even if the individual was not buried in the cemetery.

A member of the Kennedy family - they chose the simple wooden cross.

JFK's Eternal Flame Memorial. Jim said he knew of 2 times he had gone out for a few seconds. Once when a visiting nun had poured holy water on the flame!!!

After the tour of the cemetery, we took the Metro to LeEnfant Station, ate a sandwich at Subway & then went to the Air & Space Museum for our 4pm timed entry pass. We didn't have time to see a lot because I elected to sign us up for 2 planetarium shows & the museum was closed when we got out of the second one. Still loved it.