The town of Gettysburg was settled in 1780, and by the start of the Civil War battle that occurred there in 1863, it contained a population of around two,400 people. The boxing changed everything. Not merely was the town transformed into the symbolic marker of the turning signal of the state of war, just 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 Ceremonious War history.

Gettysburg is likewise constrained by the limits of the battleground that surrounds it. You can't develop that land — information technology'due south all historical sites. Homes in Gettysburg that are incredibly old aren't torn downward. They're restored. The town is trapped in fourth dimension because of three traumatic days 151 years ago. The whole affair'due south become a war memorial.

I alive in DC, about an hour-and-a-half drive from Gettysburg, and I'm surrounded by state of war memorials, as well. They're everywhere hither. They were everywhere in my previous home of London. I saw them everywhere when I traveled Europe. They're everywhere period. And at that place's an art to visiting war memorials. These sites demand more attending than fleeting glances and awkward gestures of respect.

How to await at the memorial

You tin usually tell how the war concluded past looking at the memorial itself. The World War II Memorial on the National Mall in DC is covered in monolithic granite pillars with two giant arches on either side and a fountain in the middle. It's a memorial with the pomp of a conflict won. The Vietnam War Memorial is much more somber; information technology most sinks into the ground, strangely self-effacing for an object whose sole purpose is to be viewed. It's a single hue of reflective rock with a simple list of names. There are no signs of victory here.

In Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, there'south a memorial museum called the State of war Remnants Museum. It used to be called the Museum of American War Atrocities. The bulletin at that place is clear: We won, just the scars haven't healed.

Many memorials will have lists of the war dead. If you don't know someone on the listing, try to pick a single name and comprehend that that person had a full life, family, kids maybe. Once you lot feel like you understand that, footstep back and expect at the whole listing.

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

Observing the other visitors, I'one thousand fascinated by trying to intuit how they experience about the state of war in question. Are they crying? Exercise they seem angry? Proud? Baffled?

How to feel well-nigh the memorial

In Hamlet, Hamlet says to Horatio, "There are more things on heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." Try to go on that quote in mind at the war memorial (or anywhere, actually). This is a place for humility. Regardless of what your opinions are well-nigh the war — whether it was just, whether it was a tragedy, whether information technology was glorious — they're allowed to be felt, but they shouldn't be imposed on other people. Everyone is allowed to limited anger or confusion or sadness or shame here. Information technology's non your business to judge.

War is usually depicted in reductive terms, which is moronic. War is 1 of the virtually all-encompassing, complex human phenomena there is. To convince two or more groups they need to kill each other, and so to become them to act on that confidence, takes a lot of forces working simultaneously. The force of history is behind every state of war, and the politics and the morality and the economics and the applied science of that time all manifest themselves in the disharmonize.

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