4 juillet

In an effort to overcome a significant case of blogger's block (also known as laziness) - a few words and photos for Independence Day....still relevant, I hope, one day later.

There is an impressive statue of George Washington on a horse in the middle of the circle at Place d'Iéna in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. The bronze statue sits atop a large stone pedestal and shows Washington holding a sword straight up in the air over his head, leaving no question as to who is in charge.  In the mid-1960s my mother, her parents, and three sisters lived in a second story apartment on Place d'Iéna, its row of French windows looking out on the Place at about eye level with General Washington.  Less conspicuous is the statue of George Washington a few blocks away, in the middle of the small, shaded Place des Etats-Unis.  This statue, which was commissioned by Joseph Pulitzer and designed by Auguste Bartholdi in 1895, depicts Washington shaking hands with the Marquis de La Fayette - two revolutionaries who enjoyed an intensely close and important relationship.  La Fayette, who served as a general in the Continental Army at the age of 19, would one day name a son George Washington and was posthumously awarded American citizenship in 2002.  An American flag flies over La Fayette's grave in the Cimetière de Picpus in the 12th arrondissement.  Once a year, on the 4th of July, there is a ceremonial changing of the flag which includes a French military detail, a band, and an official party of French and American military and diplomatic representatives.  Wreaths are laid and speeches are made. The ceremony somehow manages to include two playings of the National Anthem, two playings of La Marseillaise, a playing of Taps, and a playing of the French Call to the Dead.   I wish I had known about it before today (July 5th)!

Here's the statue of Washington & La Fayette (which, by the way, is across the street from Thomas Jefferson Square):

Less than a mile from the Place des Etats-Unis, outside the Musée Nationale de la Marine, is another fine statue, this one of a seated Benjamin Franklin.  The Founding Fathers enjoyed a close relationship with France, and their likenesses show up repeatedly around Paris. I have enjoyed learning about the various connections between the two countries, from the father-son relationship between Washington and La Fayette which, like most Americans, I first studied as a sixth-grader, to more obscure details of the military cooperation between the United States and France during and after the American Revolution.

Given the numerous reminders of French-American cooperation scattered around Paris, I was disappointed to find out that there was pretty much nothing doing in this town on the 4th of July (excepting the La Fayette flag ceremony).  I don't know exactly what I was expecting, but I thought perhaps there would be a luau at the US Embassy, or a softball game, or maybe a massive rock concert on the Champs de Mars.  Ok, maybe the concert is a bit far-fetched, though the amount of trash on the grass each and every morning (until it is cleaned up, usually by 7:30am) would lead you to believe there are concerts every night.  Negligent picnic-ers are the culprits.

Wanting to observe the 4th in some way, I invited the other American students from my class as well as a few French friends over for a round of cheer.   We drank Budweiser (le roi des bières) from champagne glasses and talked about our lives in Paris and at the Ecole de Guerre.  I found myself thinking about all the Americans in harm's way this 4th of July, my friend Doc Newman among them.  Doc is selfless and fun-loving and I doubt he has every passed a day without making someone laugh or paying someone a compliment however small.  He is just one of the roughly 90,000 Americans in Afghanistan, in his case as an orthopaedic surgeon stationed at Camp Bastion in Helmand Province.  From his blog I know that the hours are long, the working conditions stressful, the heat brutal and unrelenting.  While some of us sip beers at holiday cocktail parties others are taking the strain.  I think it is important to think about this, and the 4th of July is a good day to do it.  Doc, this Bud's for you.

And one from the vault...