Remembering The Alamo And Other Things

...Continued from yesterday:
    There is much to love about the city of San Antonio,

…as attested to by the 31 million  tourists who visit the city each year.
     But from among the attractions that Tom and I were able to take in -  and enjoyed much  -during our two days in San Antonio, it was a visit to the Alamo  that left me feeling especially inspired.
      The Alamo was an old 18th Century Spanish mission that eventually became a Mexican army fortress which was seized in 1835 by the Texan army during the Texas Revolution, Texas's war of independence from Mexico.  In 1836 the Mexican army led by Santa Ana, the President of Mexico, laid siege to The Alamo, wiped out the Texan forces and recaptured the fortress.
    But news of the battle of the Alamo spread across Texas and "Remember The Alamo!" became the battle cry of Texans and several months later Texas won its independence from Mexico, though another decade would pass before all military hostilities ceased between Texas and Mexico.
    But today, 150 later, the Alamo is no longer a site of war and  hostility between people,

 ...but   a lovely garden sanctuary,

...in the midst of a vibrant, city,

...a World Heritage site where people come from all over the world to visit,

...experience,

...and learn,

...a bit of history,

..and to pay their respects to those who lost their lives in its making.
     And so today people, whether they are of Mexican, American, or of any other descent, arrive at the Alamo in great numbers not to engage in conflict as they did 150 years ago,

...but to enjoy a pleasant day,

...in a lovely spot,

...where we've come together not as armed enemies,

...but as friendly
fellow tourists.

   And so this feeling, that the Alamo is serving a much happier purpose now than it did in the past, reminded me that I felt much the same about Pearl Harbor,

...when I visited there and walked among the  other tourists, many Japanese, who were there for the same peaceful, enjoyable  purpose as myself,

     

   ...and I thought of the the verse from Isaiah, 2:4:
They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.
      And I fantasized  that  a hundred or two years  from now tourists might visit and pay respects to what were once the battle grounds of Iraq, Syria and other war-torn areas of the Middle East,  now historical sites of struggles and suffering long past.
      How happy a future would that be?