8/20/2009

RESOLVED

Backing up to Monday. Robin and the boys had a 5:50 PM flight from Dulles which gave us most of the day for chatting, eating, packing and a last minute excursion to the National Museum of Health and Medicine.

The museum is located in a sad building on the Campus of Walter Reed Medical Center, behind the hospital. This is way out Georgia Avenue and not easily accessible so people do not flock to it. We live about 20 minutes from it so it was an easy trip for us and perfect considering our time pressures.









When we saw this poster out front we were surprised at the serendipity of our coming here.
We were curious about this exhibit before we entered the building and we had some clues as to the subject.
You see, in his latest Army Reserve assignment our son Jim works in the office that works with issues involving recovering the remains of lost members of the military. Jim had shown us a very touching film, Keeping the Promise, just a few days before.
The exhibit would take us further in understanding the history and evolution of methods used to identify remains.
For instance the first American soldier on record who was identified is a Major from the Revcolutionary War. They called out Paul Revere and he identified him by a dental appliance he had made for the Major.
Today identification methods include material remains, fingerprinting,
all the way to DNA.



















OOPS. I have to leve for a bit. Will finish later.

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