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I had the most amazing experience on Tuesday night. Not only that, it’s free and open to the public.

Since 1956, the U.S. Marine Drum & Bugle Corps and the Marine Corp Silent Drill Platoon, have been performing during the summer at the Iwo Jima Memorial in Arlington.

My friend Foggy Dew sent out an email last week, asking if anyone would be interested in attending. It ended up being him, me, one of my co-workers, and a few other ladies.

They have special reserved seating in front of the Memorial for VIPs and invited guests, but anyone can sit on the grass, or bring chairs or blankets to sit on.

Here’s the cool part: we had just spread out our blanket to sit on the ground when we were approached by one of the uniformed Marines who was helping with the reserved-seating section. When the reserved seats aren’t full, apparently they’ll go around and ask random people if they’d like to sit in them — which is exactly what happened to us. So instead of sitting on the ground, farther back from where everything was happening on the lawn, me and two other ladies got to sit in the second row of reserved seats, almost smack-dab in front of the Memorial.

It was awesome. The Drum & Bugle Corps played first. And it wasn’t some boring thing where they stood in one place the entire time — it was like those band performances you see at special events, like the Super Bowl, where they play their instruments while weaving around each other and creating different formations, constantly on the move. (And somehow they never collide. I don’t even want to know how many hours it takes to perfect something like that.)

After the band performed, the Silent Drill Platoon arrived. Just like when the band entered the area, the Marines marched out from behind the Iwo Jima Memorial, half on each side, came down the stairs, and met on the lawn in front of the Memorial.

I’d heard of the Silent Drill Platoon before, and I’ve seen them on YouTube, but I’d never seen them in person — so I was very, very excited to see their performance. They’re an extremely specialized group that performs without any music or commands; the training is intense and only the best of the best are chosen to perform.

I wasn’t at all disappointed. Their performance was flawless (at least that I could tell). I even found myself getting all teary-eyed at one point — you know, it was that whole “Wow, these guys make me feel really proud of my country” kind of feeling.

Specifics:

When does this happen? Tuesday evenings, for a few months during the summer. There’s only one more performance this year — next Tuesday night, August 11, from 6:30-7:30pm. If you aren’t able to catch it next week, make sure you do so next year.

How do you get there? You can drive or Metro to Arlington Cemetery and take a free shuttle bus. Or you can do like I did and take Metro to the Rosslyn station, then walk a short distance from there to the Memorial grounds.

[Note: These photos are courtesy of Foggy Dew.]

John McCain arrived just before everything started.

U.S. Marine Drum & Bugle Corps

Silent Drill Platoon

Another shot of the Silent Drill Platoon

As I mentioned yesterday, my friend Brian was able to get his hands on a pair of prime tickets to the Inauguration ceremony. The problem? We didn’t get up at the ass-crack of dawn to claim our space. In hindsight, I wish I’d driven over to Brian’s place that morning so we could have commuted in together — at least I would have had company!

I arrived at the King Street metro just after 8am, and the platform wasn’t too crowded. However, the train itself was. A bunch of people must have parked at one of the two earlier stops on the blue line, because I was one of the last people to squish into my particular train car.

On the Metro, even though it took 1.5 hours to reach my stop (on a typical day, the same trip would take about 30 minutes), the mood was pretty jovial. Our driver kept things light by giving us frequent updates over the intercom, and he’d purposefully say things to make us laugh.

(Since I was standing near one of the doors, I joined my fellow door-standers in creating a non-moving wall of bodies so people on crowded platforms couldn’t force their way into our car. Some of our fellow passengers appreciated this gesture so much, they cheered for us!)

There was a mix-up in the information I received, so I got off at the Federal Triangle stop instead of Capitol South, which is where Brian disembarked (this is why we weren’t able to meet up and ended up walking around separately). You see, once I exited from Federal Triangle, I couldn’t re-enter that particular Metro — there were so many outgoing passengers, they weren’t allowing anyone to come back in.

I attempted to walk to another nearby Metro station, but once I walked a few blocks in one direction I’d find the street was blocked off and there was no way to progress any further. I’d try another direction, same result.

In other words, there were numerous factors that thwarted my attempt to see the Inauguration. But even Brian, arriving at the correct location, wasn’t able to claim his spot — after standing in line for a while at the security checkpoint, he was told he wouldn’t make it through in enough time to see anything.

After I consulted a number of Hot Uniformed Officers, they were able to direct me to a Metro stop that was actually accepting incoming passengers — L’Enfant Plaza. (Goodness gracious, there certainly were a lot of police officers and military guys standing around yesterday! I think the only advantage to being by myself was all the sympathy and helpful instruction I received whenever I asked for help. I’d like to give a particularly special shout-out to an officer from Massachusetts, stationed near 14th and Constitution, who noticed me wandering around and made sure I was headed in the right direction.)

Once I was finally on the right path (and temporarily free from any road closures blocking my progress), I hightailed it over to L’Enfant Plaza rather than attempting to watch the swearing-in ceremony on one of the huge Jumbotron screens. I knew that once it was over, an untold number of people would rush to this very location — and no way was I going to get stuck for another couple of hours. Luckily, I was able to board the very next yellow line train and I was soon on my way home.

Time of initial departure from King St Metro: 8:05am
Arrival at Federal Triangle: 9:35am
Waited for Brian until: 10:10am
Walked around, attempted to find my way: for another 2 hours
Boarded train at L’Enfant Plaza: 12pm
Arrived home: 12:45pm