on c-span3. next, the president of the society of the honor guard, tomb of the unknown soldier, talks about the history of arlington national cemetery and the tomb of the unknowns. he describes how confederate general robert e lee s mansion became a burial ground during the civil war and discusses the role and creation of the tomb guard and tells stories about some of the notable people interred at arlington national cemetery. is a little over 90 minutes. [applause] all, thank you for the invitation and thank you, jessica jones were doing the legwork and getting this organized and put together. this is very much we have guys in their 90 s, guys in active duty, and females in our society who have guarded the tomb because the tomb was guarded first in 1995 by corporal heather johnson, the first female to walk them at in 1995. the tomb guard badge depicted on case here,d in this this is the second least awarded badge with the exception of the astronauts badge. the astronaut
our logo and in this case here, this is the second least awarded badge with the exception of the astronauts badge. the astronaut badge is in the low 200. today, we are giving badge number 634 to a young man who has completed his training and is ready to be considered a badge holder and of the fraternity and sorority, brotherhood or fellowship of tomb guard. we are a 501(c)(3) organization and part of our bylaws is that we do community outreach to educate the public about the tomb. i find that your generation, sort of a sweeping generalization, that your generation knows about the tomb. i talked to school groups and it is appalling how little they know of our history. it is not their fault. we have failed them because we have allowed all of this testing and teaching to the test and not put history on the test. i will get off my soapbox. just think of that. i do speak to a lot of school groups pro bono. this is my 81st speech this year. i will have well over 100 by the time vet
a washington d.c. bookstore as she talked about her book and her family s involvement in politics. this is just under an hour. plus i want to say is such a personal pleasure for me and for bread with some force and not here to post cokie roberts tonight. i think this is cokie your sixth or seventh author talk of politics and prose. i know you have been here for three previous books all by the way which were new york times bestsellers. cokie has been here several times with her husband steve roberts for books they have written together. some of you may know, maybe not all of you that along with many other awards cokie was named by the library of congress as a living legend, living. she is living. legend is good, living is better and i was just going to say we actually think of her as one of our own legends because she s an author with such deep roots in our washington community so if you will permit us tonight we are going to call her living legend and a local legend that le
150th anniversary of the battle of fort stevens. the battle took place july 11th and 12th in 1864 when confederate forces probed washington, d.c. s defenses before turning back. speakers discuss the battle s significance and contributions by african-american troops. this is just over an hour. good morning, and welcome to fort stevens. my name is kim elder and i m the program manager for the national park service for the civil war defenses of washington. i d like to welcome and thank each of you all for joining us this morning for the commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the battle of fort stevens. ladies and gentlemen, please stand for the presentation of colors and the singing of the national anthem by anita frasier. o say, can you see by the dawn s early light what so proudly we hailed at the twilight s last gleaming? whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight o er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming? and the ro
fort stephens. the first time in 150 years a canon will be fired in a d.c. fort. you ve got to come out and share with that. as i mentioned on sunday, we ll have the memorial program at the battleground national cemetery where we will pay respect to the 38 soldiers who are buried there and the others who have given their sacrifice for this country. we didn t have a lot of time but i do encourage you all to tell your friends about it. visit us on our website at www dot nps.gov. again, thank you all so very much. [ applause ] i think we have time for just one or two questions. if people would like to come to either of the microphones if folks have questions. we will go ahead and take them in turn. hi, david, thank you for all three of you for your presentations. i d like to ask a little bit more about the legislation. you alluded to it but i wonder if you could get into it a little bit deeper and maybe focus on how local owned virginia forts will be incorporated into that plan.