War!

  We've bumped around in history a bit this past week, getting to relive it with those re-telling their own stories, or watching an interpretation of it played out before us.  Parts of the wonderful blessings of homeschooling :)
  A while back, while posting some of my Granddad Murray's World War II pictures to the internet, I discovered that his division, the 504th Bomber group was on-line and I got hooked up with them.  It has been my desire to be able to attend one of their reunions and this year it was only an hour away from us in Kansas City!  Granddad did not fly on the bombers, he was part of the medical division and was an x-ray technician.  He used to tell stories of how he would watch the bombers come in to the island of Tinian where he was stationed.
  Our oldest, Bubby, is especially in to anything war related lately.  This includes everything from the Civil War, World War I or II, so Hubby and I made sure he was able to attend with us :) The day we picked to attend consisted of a POW-MIA ceremony and dinner.
  The POW-MIA ceremony was performed by a local ROTC and involved a symbolic table set for the missing soldier and a reading of the 504th men who lost their lives during the war.

  Our favorite part of the day was getting to visit with the five 504th veterans and one Marine in attendance.  Bubby found a new friend, Fiske.  Fiske served on one of the bombers and was captured as a POW (prisoner of war). I have bemoaned the fact many times that this kiddo's great-grandpas are not around to share their experiences with him.  What an awesome experience for this kid to get to meet some of the men who served where one of his great-grandpas served!

  This may have been our first time attending something like this, but it's not our last.  This is another wonderful way to encourage the love of history for our next generation!
  Continuing with our war theme, just today we were able to witness a reenactment of the Battle of Hickory Point here in NE Kansas.  This is one of the battles during the Bleeding Kansas era when pro-slavery and free-staters were battling it out quite literally for control of Kansas Territory.  This was to commemorate the 160th anniversary of the battle (which took place 5 miles to the north of Oskaloosa where we were) and just a perfect day for it! We joined a couple hundred Jefferson County school kids to watch the excitement!

It was thrilling to see the battle and hear the roar of the cannon - well, only if you prepared yourself for that one, it was quite startling ;) 
Next week in further continuance of the war theme, Bubby will once again be able to take place in a reenactment of the Battle of BlackJack, another Bleeding Kansas battle.  We're setting quite a precedent with these kinds of trips, a museum might seem kind of tame after this...