War Monuments

In the past two months I have visited quite a few War Monuments/Memorials. While Tiffany was working one day, I went by myself to the US Navy Memorial. I love learning about what happened and find myself appreciating the sacrifices people made. It makes me want to talk to older people who remember the Wars before they start dying off and no one knows their stories.

It was fantastic getting to walk around with Tiffany at the beginning of September in DC. We saw:

WWII Memorial

Vietnam Wall Memorial (this was sobering because this was our parents' era).

Korean War Monument

So it's no surprise that when I saw this:

... I wanted to go check it out.

Turns out this Memorial is called Sacrario militare di Redipuglia. (Check out the link -- apparently this is Italy's largest military memorial)

This is Joe and me. He's my stepmom's brother-in-law (he's married to her sister, Anna). The entire day yesterday I hung out with Joe, Anna, their daughters Natasha and Anika, Anna's mom, and Natasha's daughter, Georgia. Joe and I were the only ones up for exploring this as the rest had seen this before and were tired from the exciting morning in Trieste for the Regatta.

Each step has a list of names of soldiers who died there. If we had more time I would have climbed to the top where there are three crosses and inside of the graves, there are the bones of thousands of unknown soldiers.

My favorite part of this place, although sobering, was going into the bunkers or as they called them trincea blindata (reinforced trench)

Here's a video of me and Joe inside:

I had to take a funny picture with all this serious stuff... 

I got my picture with some men who dressed in the uniforms from back in the day... Taps just started playing as we were taking this picture, so they don't look too happy.

Lately I've been finding myself praying a lot for Claudio, my Italian friend who's in Afghanistan until April. There was news that four Italians died in an attack close to where he was. I just pray God's protection for him and the others who are over there right now. Please join me in praying.