Yesterday, I celebrated today’s 242nd anniversary of Napoleon Bonaparte’s birth with a group of new friends from the Napoleonic Historical Society. Over a champagne brunch at the Fort Myer officers club, we toasted the Emperor. I’m looking forward to seeing these folks and other Napoleonic enthusiasts at the Historical Society’s annual conference, held this year in Baltimore September 16-18. One of the group brought his plaster death mask of Napoleon—one of a hundred molded from the 1821 original.
In the officers club’s lobby, there’s a bust of Napoleon—a reminder that, as much as warfare has changed in the past two hundred years, militaries all over the world still consider Napoleon to be important.
Fort Myer adjoins Arlington National Cemetery, so after the brunch, my husband and I visited my parents’ grave. Here’s a photo taken from the cemetery of the 270-foot Air Force Memorial, which was dedicated in 2006.