Remember the Alamo

I think that we all will. The first time we saw it was at night which was an amazing sight. It is all lit up and beautiful. Hard to believe that such a terrible tragedy happened there.
For those that are a little fuzzy on Texas history, here is a brief refresher...the event happened at a time where Texas was actually its own country and Mexico wanted it. There was a small establishment there but it was determined that there was no way that the settlement would survive without some strong walls and weapons to help out. So, the fort was built. Just as expected, the Mexican army, about 2,000 strong came to overtake the fort, about 200 strong. With re-enforcements arriving for the mexican army steadily and none for the settlers, the settlers were able to hold off the army for about 2 weeks before the Mexican army finally breeched the walls and took the fort. While it was a tragedy that the people died, it was a victory in that they held out for so long.
The interesting part of this was to put ourselves back in that time and try to impress on our kids the feelings and the lives that the people there would have been experiencing.
The main part of the building was known as the shrine and we were requested to speak in hushed tones and men remove thier hats out of respect for the fallen. Ironically we were there on the day of another part of this whole tragedy called the battle of Goliad. Basically there was a group of about 300 that had fled from danger and were later captured and assured that they would not be harmed. On the 27th of March the Mexican government ordered all 300 of the be executed. They were taken out and shot. At the time that we were there the Daughters of the Republic of Texas were holding a special memorial for the 300. There was a bagpipe player in the traditional kilt playing Amazing Grace and there were decendants of some of the 300 that all went into the shrine area. They gave an invocation and then recited the pledge of allegiance there in the shrine. I think that nothing would have had a greater affecto on me that day than to stand on a place that so many perished and pledge my allegiance to a country that has lost so many in the name of freedom.
Another thing that I found quite ironic was that this piece of history was right in the middle of a bunch of high-rise buildings...the past meets the present I guess.