Memorial Park......

There really isn't a whole lot in Oregon.  Mostly trees actually on the one side of the mountains and high desert and farmland on the sunny side.  While you'll see nearly every election the state turns out for the liberal democrat that's because the democrats and the population are concentrated in three counties.  Despite this, Oregon, per capita, is third in the U.S. in terms of military service.  

Despite its liberal tendencies, there are quite a few memorials to those who've served and our current governor is a U.S. Marine Colonel Retired (how they become democrats I don't know).  At any rate, this is Memorial Park in the heart of Beaverton dedicated to the Armed Forces.  I was out on a bike ride and decided to stop and actually look at it and take some pictures (notice the grey skies).

As an 8th Generation American (beginning with the Revolution) with 5 of those 8 generations serving in the armed forces and 3 of them pioneering Oregon and deliberately chopping down trees specifically to infuritate future generations of liberals who owe their very existence to the evil-tree-choppers who made it so they could live here and purchase their pre-packaged tofu products that magically appear on store shelves which spontanously generate themselves and were never grown on a farm..... the military memorials are somewhat poignant to me when we live in a world that would forget them it seems.  But here they are in stone and steel and quite difficult to erase if not ignore as it sits on a main thoroughfare through the city.

This is a Submarine Memorial with a list of all the Submarines lost in the Silent Service on the black plaques.  When I was becoming a nuclear machinists mate, not only was there a photo of every nuclear submarine in the US Navy as you walked the halls of that magnificent institution, there was also a piece of the wreckage of theUSS Thresher  framed at the school.  It was just surprising to me to find it memorialized here when the lessons from it were once a part of my naval training and its name once played an integral part in my life as I trained for the Silent Service.

Here is a plaque and below it was the names of those from Oregon who died on 9/11.

Memorial to those who defended the skies or fought from them....

 Somehow the cherry blossoms around and even inside it seemed fitting....

Amen to the message on this memorial....