Exploring DC

After sleeping soundly until almost 10AM, we headed into Springfield-Franconia Metro Station, and caught the blue line to DC, headed for Arlington Cemetery. Our original plan was to take a tour bus, but I couldn't resist checking out Arlington, and looking up Uncle Bryce. We found his marker, shown here. He was a Naval Aviator, a P51 pilot, and served in WWII and in the Korean War. It is a sobering sight to see the National Graveyard with over 320,000 military bodies. We visited JFK's eternal flame, saw the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and learned that Robert E. Lee originally owned the land that is now Arlington National Cemetery. The US Government passed a law that citizens must appear in person to pay their property taxes, or be in default. Since Lee was in the Confederacy, and in the Army, he couldn't appear without risking capture, so forfeited his property. The US promptly snatched it up. Sounds like something the Nazis would do, doesn't it? Or, maybe like what we did with the property of Japanese-Americans on the west coast during WWII. Am I a cynic, or a realist?