Does it get any better than this for your 31st anniversary? Turns out Harlingen Texas bought the plastic casting of the Iwo Jima sculpture. They had a local soldier who participated in the real raising of the flag in Iwo Jima. Plus they have a preparatory school for the marine corps there. We wanted to see this historic site and so we ventured out in the rain on the Saturday after Christmas to check it out.
I loved this picture of Ben and Eva. The Franciscos were the perfect hosts for our trip. We really appreciated the wonderful way they welcomed us into their home and showed us some fun places down Harlingen way.
I loved seeing this sculpture during one of our trips to Washington D.C. During that time the tour guide mentioned that there was an extra hand sculpted into the formation which was symbolic of God's hand in the battle. I loved that thought. Turns out it isn't true...
I wanted to see the famous fence on the border of the U.S. and Mexico. I really wanted to see the Rio Grande too. We started walking over toward this fence just at dusk (that's why it's a little blurry). A guard came out and stopped us in our tracks. We asked about the river. Turns out it is about a mile away at this point. Win some and lose some.
On our way up to San Antonio on the way home we stopped in Corpus Christi to visit the Lexington. This is a navy aircraft carrier that was decommissioned in 1990. It had most things a small city would have. There was a dental office, a post office, a barber shop, a chapel, and so many other things. The ship was huge. Our feet ached and we only saw about half of it. The most interesting thing to me was a description of the Japanese part of the war. Japan lost a lot of oil tankers to torpedos early on thus decreasing their ability to train their pilots in bombing runs. The general came up with the idea to train them instead to crash into the U.S. fleet's ships. This became a very honorable position for the Japanese air corp. The other thing that was interesting was the way the Japanese leaders asked the people to come together to fight for the motherland. They told the citizens they needed strong people both physically and spiritually. To strengthen them physically they would broadcast calisthenics instructions over the radio. Everyone dropped what they were doing at that moment and exercised together.
Here are Clark and Eva in the captain's chair of the enormous ship. They were good sports about our visit there.
