One Stop on the Historic Arkansas Riverwalk - The Center for American Values Walk of Valor

To be perfectly honest with you, every time I take a walk lately, I forget my camera, so I'm digging through shit that's stored on my computer to bring you, the faithful reader, another installment of Exploring Pueblo, CO on foot.  Most of the pictures on my computer are of things that aren't in Pueblo, like this one:

See?  Don't worry, though, rabid Pueblophiles (not to be confused with you-know whats), I was digging through the computer today and I found some pictures that my wife took when she took my son to the Center for American Values Walk of Valor on the Historic Arkansas Riverwalk (quite the mouthful. who comes up with this shit, anyway?)  It is essentially a vault of about 50 or so portraits of dudes who have done crazier shit than you could probably ever imagine.  When you see crazy stunts on war movies, those actions are generally modeled after the things that these guys actually did.

As a parent and a self-proclaimed aficionado of human decency, I can't exactly encourage my son to go into the military, but I can still teach him to respect the people who have done so.  I'm not exactly sure that taking him to this place was the best move because he seemed a little bored, but in the sort of civilization that recognizes symbols of merit bequeathed by esteemed members of the current hierarchy more than the behaviors those symbols were awarded for, it's only right to show the boy how each of these men is wearing a little medal around his neck.

As you're headed south from Union Avenue on the west side of the Riverwalk, you'll notice a small, dungeonesque enclosure off to your right.  If you work up the courage to enter, you will have the chance to view the collected portraits of surviving Congressional Medal of Honor recipients from the years leading up to the construction of the memorial.

Hmm...

Is it a memorial if it is constructed in honor of people who are still alive?  I'm becoming a little concerned because I believe the term we've been using to generically refer to it when giving directions is "that memorial thingy."  While it may be said that this is an issue of semantics, it may also be said that semantics is nothing less than the development of clarity in both thought and communication.  Either way, this hall is chock-full of the portraits of these fine men, and if you are the sort of person who likes to check that type of thing out, it is not to be missed.  For the rest of us, it is shady and kept cool, and as long as you make your way through in an orderly, grocery store-type fashion, it's a way to get the kids some AC for a minute on a hot day without them asking you to buy anythings.

I've selected one such portrait because, well, because it showed up the best out of the batch.  Without any
disrespect intended for the man in the image, it really looks like he's posing behind the silhouette of a soldier bayoneting an unarmed civilian.  It also appears that the civilian is a child.  Merkin values?  You betcha!