As I left Hershey, PA, I would make a long circular journey into New England and I would be off the interstates quite a bit. I began a lovely back country drive across New York towards Saratoga, and the first small town I came upon provided a nice surprise...the small road took a 90 degree turn through town and as I turned my head - bingo! There sat a tank! and thus a memorial. I whipped the car around and took a few pictures. This day would provide a number of small town memorials that I just found along the route.
My ride was quite lovely and peaceful with little traffic. The town of Wayne offered up the next local memorial. 
The road wound along a national forest and a beautiful lake and provided a great sense of tranquility and meaning to my trip. 
My major destination on this day was the Saratoga Monument north of the Saratoga National Historic Park and Battlefield. The monument is where the defeated British army and its civilian stragglers under General John Burgoyne fled through the woods and then actually surrendered and changed the course of the Revolution in the fall of 1777. The monument sits in a small village next to a private cemetery. During operating hours one can go inside and there is a gift shop, but I arrived later in the day. The monument is not often visited and often overlooked but really marks the key spot of the events of Saratoga, and Victory Woods are an eerily preserved section of the deep woods that fleeing British troops ran through in an attempt to escape. 
From Saratoga I drove on a lovely back road through small New England towns as I crossed into Vermont. The late afternoon/evening was beautiful and many people were out on their porches amid the huge masses of blooming flowers. Many of the small towns/villages had memorials and I realized I could not stop at all of them as I headed to Bennington. I reluctantly drove on east until I finally just had to stop. In Greenwich I came upon a simply beautiful little memorial located in the "v" formed by two streets. Quickly I pulled into the parking lot of the orthodontist next to the memorial. As I approached the memorial I realized it was of different eras with an older circular memorial and newer marble monuments.
I also quickly realized my karma for these memorials was flying high because the first small plaque I walked up to in the circle of flowers with my camera ready, listed the name of a local young man who had died in service during World War I....and he had died in Texas. All of the other men had perished in France except this one, the one I had chosen to walk directly to for my first picture.
The memorial honored those who had falled from Greenwich and Easton from World War I to Vietnam. Throughout my trip I have travelled many miles of Veteran's Memorial Highways/Biways and Bridges. Some are in honor of all veterans and some, especially in West Virginia, are named for specific veterans, often Medal of Honor recipients. Unfortunately, I do not always have my camera ready to snap a picture but believe me I notice the signs. 
My final memorial of the day was the large obelisk/tower located at Bennington, Vermont where in 1777 volunteers from Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachussetts had stopped an attempt by a British force sent by General Burgoyne from seizing much needed supplies. The Americans fought off the British attack on this beautiful high ground. The obelisk is quite impressive and can be seen for miles and the small gift shop sits right where the original colonial storehouse was located. 
What a gorgeous view!
And finally the monument site and the downtown region of Bennington are partially inhabited by these great painted artsy mooses! They remind me of the painted steers found around Fort Worth!
I drove on to Brattleboro, Vermont to spend the night and again what a great drive with my moonroof open! The next morning I headed first into New Hampshire. In Manchester the main cemetery houses a section dedicated to the Franco-Americans from Manchester who have fought in America's wars. 
In downtown Manchester is a small veterans park that contains a large tower with statuary commemorating those New Hampshirites who fought and died in World War I. The female statue is really quite unusual with her face hidden within the hooded cloak but her sadness permeates the site. 
The park also contains a memorial tribute to Rene Gagnon one of the Marines who helped in the famous flag raising captured on film at Iwo Jima. 
Manchester is a diverse city and also has a large Jewish population and several synagogues. At the oldest one in town is a small but poignant memorial to the victims of the Holocaust with an image of the family seemingly rising from the flames. 
After days of driving north, I now headed south to Connecticut. New Hampshire was the northern peak of my travels on this journey. Connecticut would offer an array of various types of memorials but especially to submarines. As I approached Hartford, my eye caught the brown signs of an historical site that indicated an Iwo Jima Memorial was located nearby, so off I went on another adventure. The signs led me to a really impressive memorial to the veterans of Connecticut who saw action at the battle for Iwo Jima in 1945. The site is just off of the interstate in a small clearing which is not impressive but the display is stirring; it includes a miniature reproduction of the famous Marine Corps Iwo Jima Memorial in Washington DC that I had seen in April. The list of Connecticut boys lost at Iwo Jima was surprisingly large, and the displays honoring chaplains and medics reminds one of all those who serve. 
In New Britain I climbed the hill in the large city park to view the very tall obelisk dedicated to the Connecticut veterans who served in World War I. On this very warm day there were few out in the park but the view over the city was splendid. Most states erected large memorials to remember their citizens who fought in the First World War and these memorials tend to be located on large hills or in the city center and are often composed of an obelisk. The Connecticut memorial is topped by a large eagle with its wings folded behind it, and the circle around the obelisk contains plaques with the names of the fallen.
I have always been enamored with submarines and U-boats and so Groton, CT called me to come see the Naval Submarine Base and the memorial to US submarines. The first memorial is located under the Gold Star Bridge along the waterfront (and right next to an automative repair shop which is where one must park)and contains the conning tower of a submarine and the Wall of Honor commemorating all US submarines lost at sea. The Wall lists every name of every crew member who was lost. 
From here you drive down the small seaside road to the US Naval Submarine Warfare Base and the neighboring Submarine Warfare Museum. This museum is dedicated to all US submariners and is where the USS Nautilus, the first nuclear submarine, is docked and can be toured. I read the story of the Nautilus in grade school and was fascinated by its journey under the polar ice cap. I was in heaven!
The beauty of the Groton/New London area along the coast energized me and I would need it as I still had quite a long way to go this day. My next stop was Yale University in New Haven to see the memorial on campus to Yale students/graduates who had perished in combat. The key road was under construction in the interior of the campus and so I had to pull over and feed a parking meter; luckily a small group of older adults was on the sidewalk and I asked for directions and they helpfuly obliged. So I took off across campus; there were quite a few students on campus and I smiled to myself as they reminded me of the students in my classes. The Yale memorial is located in the Yale Commons, the central point of campus and the main dining hall, so it was a beehive of activity. The memorial consists of names etched onto the walls, plaques or one large granite monument; Yale graduates are commemorated from the war of 1812 through World War II. 
Sadly, along the main corrider that leads to the dining hall are listed all of the names from the Civil War, however, I had to lift up floor mats to find the inscription that identifies this memorial and students walked by with puzzled looks on their faces. One or two slowed down and peered at the names as if seeing them for the very first time. Interestingly there are plaques remembering Yale graduates who died as in the Boxer Rebellion and fighting in China in the 1930s. (A few years back I had the chance to visit Harvard, and that campus contains a large memorial chapel that I believe to be more impressive and eye catching.)I then spent some fruitless time driving around New Haven in rush hour traffic searching for two more memorials before finally discovery the last set on my list for this city. Down along the water front along a non-descript street that contained many cars of road maintenance workers who were going home, were located a series of memorials. These seemed almost an afterthought and no one was around. The memorials commemorate Connecticut losses in the Vietnam War and the current Wars against Terrorism as well as an impressive V-shaped statue to honor and remind one of the POW/MIAs. These all look out across the water peacefully. I hoped that the people of New Haven know about these commemorations as they felt lonely, cold and forgotten.
My journey continued westward to Danbury located near the border with New York. Within the city is Veterans Park and on this night it was filled with families attending little league and adult baseball games. I managed to find some parking and walked to the large green area that contains the Danbury tribute to veterans of all wars; the grounds are quite beautiful and inviting and feature a rose garden. There is even a raised seating area for special ceremonies and pillars that have the names of all those from Danbury who fought in each war.
Not far down the road in the same park and near Memorial Hall are located the stirring monuments to the Danbury veterans of Korea and Vietnam.
After a long day and drive, I had captured a number of beautiful memorials and spent some time driving aimlessly in New Haven, but I had seen much. I now headed west into the setting sun; my destination was the iconic West Point and site of the US Military Academy. I drove over Storm King mountain just a darkness fell.
