I pause upon the Memorial Bridge, opening to the historical outdoor museum, sprawling in glorious wonder, with moon and stars shining above.
Central to this museum of memorials is our first leader in war and politics and his tall, thin monument, pointing to the stars in true Masonic fashion.
Behind me is land formerly owned by the leader of the strife that tore our nation in bitter conflict and now holds graves honoring these heroes who fought for principles so dear, as well as those who followed in later years, having fought in wars across the sea with weapons that seem to have fallen from the stars.
Before me is a monument to a leader who worked tirelessly to reunite a nation during the bloody division, himself remembered as a fallen hero and memorialized as one of our nation’s stars.
Another memorial stands not far from our first leader’s obelisk and proudly displays the results of a massive war sending our heroes across two oceans, joining with the gallant knights of our mother country as well as the other brave heroes defending their homeland in the the bitterly cold north, to assail and bring down two firebreathing dragons with all the might we could muster. This memorial to the no-holds-barred struggle stands tall and proud in this historical open-air museum beneath the stars.
A short distance from the man in the chair, you find another monument to fallen heroes from a more recent era in spite of another division of our citizens, as bitter as the bloody feud a century earlier. These stars are individually remembered.
In the future, more memorials for the recent fallen heroes need to be erected, of course. But how about a new type of memorial for the people who will finally raise the banners of peace for ages to come? That memorial would mark the end of war and the beginning of the adventure to the stars.
