The town of Gettysburg was settled in 1780, and past the offset of the Civil War battle that occurred there in 1863, it contained a population of around two,400 people. The battle changed everything. Not simply was the boondocks transformed into the symbolic marking of the turning point of the war, only it became the site of one of the greatest speeches e'er given: the Gettysburg Address. When you visit today, the entire boondocks is geared towards its Civil War history.

Gettysburg is likewise constrained by the limits of the battlefield that surrounds it. You can't develop that land — information technology's all historical sites. Homes in Gettysburg that are incredibly former aren't torn down. They're restored. The boondocks is trapped in fourth dimension because of three traumatic days 151 years ago. The whole thing's become a state of war memorial.

I live in DC, about an hour-and-a-one-half drive from Gettysburg, and I'm surrounded by war memorials, besides. They're everywhere here. They were everywhere in my previous home of London. I saw them everywhere when I traveled Europe. They're everywhere catamenia. And in that location'southward an art to visiting state of war memorials. These sites demand more attention than fleeting glances and awkward gestures of respect.

How to look at the memorial

You tin usually tell how the war ended past looking at the memorial itself. The Earth War II Memorial on the National Mall in DC is covered in monolithic granite pillars with ii giant arches on either side and a fountain in the centre. It'southward a memorial with the pomp of a conflict won. The Vietnam State of war Memorial is much more somber; it almost sinks into the ground, strangely cocky-effacing for an object whose sole purpose is to be viewed. It's a unmarried hue of reflective rock with a elementary listing of names. There are no signs of victory here.

In Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, there's a memorial museum called the War Remnants Museum. Information technology used to be called the Museum of American War Atrocities. The message there is clear: Nosotros won, merely the scars oasis't healed.

Many memorials volition have lists of the war expressionless. If you don't know someone on the listing, attempt to pick a unmarried name and comprehend that that person had a full life, family, kids possibly. Once you experience like y'all understand that, step dorsum and look at the whole list.

The last showroom at every memorial is the people visiting with you. Scout them. In DC and in Normandy, for example, you'll oftentimes see veterans at the site. They're the most fascinating to both watch and talk to because the memorial'southward history runs parallel to their own. While you should obviously be respectful and feel out each situation, I've often institute that vets want to talk about their experiences.

Observing the other visitors, I'g fascinated by trying to intuit how they experience almost the war in question. Are they crying? Do they seem aroused? Proud? Baffled?

How to experience most the memorial

In Hamlet, Hamlet says to Horatio, "There are more things on heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." Endeavor to keep that quote in listen at the war memorial (or anywhere, really). This is a place for humility. Regardless of what your opinions are about the war — whether information technology was just, whether it was a tragedy, whether it was glorious — they're immune to be felt, only they shouldn't exist imposed on other people. Anybody is allowed to express anger or confusion or sadness or shame here. It'due south not your business to approximate.

State of war is usually depicted in reductive terms, which is moronic. War is one of the most extensive, circuitous human phenomena there is. To convince ii or more groups they demand to kill each other, and and so to become them to deed on that conviction, takes a lot of forces working simultaneously. The force of history is behind every war, and the politics and the morality and the economics and the technology of that fourth dimension all manifest themselves in the disharmonize.

War memorials, on the other hand, aren't meant to be acted on in whatever mode. They're meant to be captivated, then processed, then learned from. They aren't places onto which you lot should project your own philosophy; instead, concentrate on allowing them to impress their message — whatever that may be — onto you.