The Flaming Sword

One of the things I got to shoot on this most recent trip to DC that I had missed previously was this flaming sword. This is the Second Division Memorial in DC, not too awful far from the First Division Memorial. This one also dates from WWI and also features the amazing gold gilding.

Is it just me or is there something vaguely Soviet about this memorial? It just seems like something you'd see in old news footage from the cold war, and not something that's from our side. Perhaps it's just me.

I had to wait a long time to get pictures of this thing without too many people climbing on it. It seemed to be a popular memorial to climb for some reason. I guess they'll eventually have to rope it off and limit access. I saw my grandmother today, and she was telling me that she has pictures of herself sitting in the lap of Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial. I think they'd shoot you if you tried to do that today. I guess fame has it's cost.

This was the view I had on first walking up to the flaming sword from the rear. It almost looks like it's glowing.