Slept in a bit and had a hearty breakfast. Then Peggy, Rob, Dick and Patti met Drew and Toni at a new museum.
This is the Museum of the Medal of Honor. It just opened a few months ago and really is modern state of the art portrayal of many of the stories of the nearly 4000 military service members who have been awarded this highest medal of valor and bravery awarded to anyone in the military.
We spent nearly 3 hours learning about the medals, reading stories about various service members who were awarded this honor and looked at many related artifacts. These individuals were nearly universally people who were very brave and humble. Many of them who survived felt guilt that they lived when many of their fellow service members died. It was very well done and sobering.
There were movies that shared many of the experiences. And, there also was a really brilliant virtual reality experience that allowed you to sit in a room before a screen with one of the medal of honor recipients. Then you could press a button and ask them a question (apparently they were asked hundreds of questions in their taped interviews). The algorithm would pull up clips based on keywords and they would “answer“ our questions. The two gentlemen that we heard about had amazing stories of bravery. It was presented in such a powerful way.
The final thing we did was a virtual reality experience where in small groups we put on headsets, and then it was as though we were in a Huey helicopter in Vietnam being sent on a “dustoff mission”. That was basically a mission where somebody in the military was injured and needed to be rescued by helicopter. This was a situation that led to a number of Medals of Honor being awarded. They ran a scenario for us and we each got a chance to help make some decisions about who to rescue, whether we could see snipers, whether the helicopter was ready to leave or to stay longer. Both of the helicopters that our group ended up rescuing all the people and landing safely. We understand isn’t always the case. But it gave quite a realistic view of all of the difficult decisions that had to be made, sometimes with just a split second as these soldiers were fighting to save fallen Americans and allies.
This was all made much more poignant, knowing that there are new wars brewing, and many soldiers around the world are in harms way. We would recommend the museum as one really worth a visit. We were left with a lot of gratitude for the service of our military. Although both Patti and Dick are not big supporters of war, we have a lot of appreciation for our military service members and their families and the sacrifices they make
By this point, it was midafternoon and we were all so hungry. So we went to a wonderful barbecue restaurant and ate a lot of really great food. Fun too dig into some good Texas barbecue.
Then back to the house and a little rest. We took time for a swim and then dinner with fantastic leftovers from the last couple of days.
We ended the evening by watching the finals of MBA professional basketball. Another really great day.
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