Day 3: Washington, D.C. Memorial Tour

Today was our first full day of the Normandy Institute.  We started the day with breakfast at the University of Maryland South Dining Hall.  We've been enjoying the school so far.  The dorms are super nice as you can see below, almost twice the size of my dorm at Notre Dame:(  My roommate is a teacher from Carlisle, Pennsylvania named Jake Miller (no, he's not the real State Farm guy), and Isaac is rooming with a student named Spencer from Columbus, Ohio.

Next, we sat down in the classroom for several academic lectures (they were way more interesting than they sound).  Dr. Ray Batvinis spoke to us about Intelligence, Counterintelligence and Deception during D-Day.  He explained how the Allies broke the Japanese code Magic and the German code Enigma, and this allowed them to discover Axis agents and use double agents to outsmart them.  The British and Americans were so successful at this deception that Hitler still believed that the Allies would invade France at Calais one week after D-Day.  Operation Fortitude was the Allies' massive deception operation that utilized inflatable tanks and planes and thousands of decoy soldiers.  After this lecture, we heard from Dr. Farrell from Mary Washington University, who explained the Homefront through visual images.  Both lectures were informative and helpful for putting WWII in context.

Operation Fortitude Dummy Tank

After our classroom session and a quick lunch, we boarded our super cool University of Maryland Bus (Fear the Turtle) to go down to the National Mall for a Memorial Tour.  

Our first stop was the World War II Memorial, the newest memorial on the National Mall.  We discussed and analyzed the message of the memorial as we toured it.  I have many opinions about this memorial, but I won't bore you at the moment.  Here are some pictures from the tour.  

We went back to the Jefferson and FDR Memorials with the group, before heading to the Korean War Memorial, Vietnam Veterans Memorial, and the Lincoln Memorial.  It was a beautiful day, but we were hot and tired by the end of our long tour.

After dinner, Isaac and his friends were off to play ultimate frisbee outside the dorm, while the teachers and I will be watching Game 7 of the NBA Finals.  It was a good first full day, and everyday we get closer to Normandy!