The Greatest Generation: Their National Memorial is a Most Sacred Place.

The last time we were in Washington, The National World War II Memorial wasn't here. It didn't open until 2004. But anything having to do with our greatest generation, that generation of my father, is a most special place to me. Growing up as an Army brat, I know a bit about things military. Someday perhaps something lengthy, maybe a book, will come out of it all, but for now, I thought you might appreciate some of the pictures we took while we were there amid the veterans gathering in Washington for Veterans Day.

The Memorial is divided into two sections, each flanked by the pillars seen here, one for each of our United States.

Our father, who's a retired U.S. Army Infantry Colonel and is very much still with us, entered the war post D-Day. His first battle was in the Huertgen Forest. He also fought in the Bulge and crossed the Remagen Bridge that night while it was still standing. When we lived in Paris in the late '50s, my Dad took Gary and me through Germany on the same path that he took in the war. We literally stood between the spires where the Remagen Bridge once towered. And we also got to stand atop a pill box his company destroyed on the Siegfried Line.

Here's a shot that my son Chuck took that we particularly liked, that of a Veteran standing solo, taking in the side of the Memorial devoted to the Pacific theater. God bless them all.

It was amazing to watch Veterans at the Memorial read this. They just stood, silently, reverently, and stared. Admiral Nimitz, like the rest of those departed, are still very much with us all.

The visual here is stunning. That's the Lincoln Memorial in the distance, and behind us towers the Washington Monument.

My son shot this with a telephoto lens that puts the visual here into a nice perspective. There will be a day when our greatest generation is gone, and it is one none of us ever wishes would come. It makes perfect sense to us that our fathers efforts will forever be memorialized in between those of Linclon and Washington, with that of Thomas Jefferson standing alone, perhaps as it should be, not that far away.

(LAKE TAHOE REAL ESTATE BLOG) It was special for me to have been brought here by my son Chuck. That's love and family you see standing here. And we wish Dad could have been here too, but he is recovering from recent eye surgery. All four generations in my family are meeting here in Lake Tahoe in January. And you can look forward to my indulgences here with photographs and a few captions from that.