A/N: *sets out box of tissues* Just in case.

Chapter 5

Abbey, Stella and the boys were the first to walk off the escalator onto the Mall, followed by Reed with Casee. He looked at the first site he saw. Shaking his head, he looked at the two ladies, while moving away to let Mac and Matt get the wagon off. "Wow," is all he said.

Matt, looking at the same view, wrapped his arm around Reed's shoulder. "Pretty impressive, isn't it?"

"What is it daddy," Casee questioned.

"That's the Washington Monument." Reed pulled his digital camera from his backpack and started taking pictures. Looking in the distance, he saw the Lincoln Memorial behind the Washington Monument and the World War II Memorial in between. Matt looked at him, as the group made their way from the escalator. "Turn around Reed."

Reed did as Matt told him and saw the US Capitol at the other end of the Mall. "Now that's really impressive," he said as he took another picture.

Matt smiled. "We've got young legs along, so we're just going to do the west end today and be slow in the process." Since the next day would be the Fourth, DC Metro Police already had barricades up, blocking the streets that ran by the Washington Monument. Tomorrow, the Mall would be filled with over 200,000 people for the National Concert on the steps of the Capitol and the fireworks display. Crews were working to get the huge monitors going so that all on the Mall could enjoy the concert.

Yet the barricades gave the family with the young children easy access. The group made their way around the Washington Monument and headed for the south side of the Mall on the west side. They made their way to the Jefferson Memorial, walking around the Tidal Pool. As they did, Stella looked at Abbey, nodding at the trees that lined the pool. "Do you ever get here when the Cherry Blossoms are out?"

Abbey smiled. "We did one year. I had just been promoted to the DC Fed office and Matt was teaching at the FBI Academy. Our careers finally put us together," Abbey smiled. "It was just before I got pregnant with the twins."

When they reached the site, they looked at the statue of Jefferson and read some of the words of the Declaration of Independence on one of the walls. "Aunt Stella, who is he," Cam whispered.

Stella smiled at her nephew. "He was a great man that was one of the founders of our country. We owe him a lot."

Cam looked at the statue and gave it a salute. "Thank you." Matt and Abbey smiled at their oldest son. They continued to walk around the circular small bay, also taking in the FDR Memorial and the new King Memorial. They slowly made their ways towards the Lincoln Memorial so the kids wouldn't get tired out. Colin, showing signs of starting to drag, sat on top of the cooler in the wagon after Mac put him there.

As they finally approached the memorial, Colin noticed the Reflecting Pool. He looked at his mother. "Wow, mom; now that's a big swimming pool." The all laughed at his youthful observation, with Mac ruffling his hair.

Casee looked up the steps of the Memorial. "Col, look at the size of that guy! He needs a pool that big!" The adults laughed even louder as Matt and Abbey gently explained to the three kids about the monuments they were seeing and why they were so much larger than real life.

"They were that big when our country needed them," Matt concluded.

Cam, like his BFF Jack, was a profiler in the making. He noticed the change in his Uncle Mac, who had moved to stand next to him and Stella as they looked at Mr. Lincoln, sitting in his chair. "He's special, isn't he Uncle Mac?"

Mac smiled at his nephew and grabbed his other hand and knelt down next to him. "Cam, at a time when this country really needed a leader, a President, he was that man. He saved this country."

Cam mulled that thought over for a second. "Then I guess he gets to be that big."

Stella broadly smiled as Mac rubbed his nephew's chin. "Yes he does Cam."

Reed looked at all of them. "Uncle Matt, give me the wagon. The rest of you go stand by the steps so I can get a picture." He sat on the cooler in the wagon as the Taylor family gathered for the photo. When he finished, Reed looked into the view screen in the back of his camera. "That's a great pic," he said showing Stella and Abbey. "And yes, I know you both want copies. I'll take care of it."

Matt, with his linguistic skills, heard a Japanese family debating about whom to ask to take the same family picture. Matt smiling approached them. With his perfect dialect of their language, he offered to take the picture, adding, smiling at the teenage daughter, "Will you take one of our family as well?" Smiles were exchanged as the daughter handed him her camera and Matt got them lined up for the picture. Stella smiled at Mac.

As he finished, Reed handed his camera to teenager. She got them all together, and took a couple pictures. Handing the camera back to Reed, she said looking at the results, "It's OK?" with a thick Japanese accent.

Reed smiled, looking at the pictures. "They are wonderful. Thank you." Matt translated for the entire family, who smiled as well. The father asked Matt a question, which he patiently answered, pointing to the path to the Jefferson Memorial. The shared their good-byes. Matt gave the father the traditional Japanese bow of respect, which was reciprocated.

Cam looked at Abbey. "Mom, I'm getting hungry."

"Me too," Colin added.

"Me three," Casee smiled. "And thirsty." While it was a pleasant day, with the temperature around 80˚ and low humidity, the kids had been out in the sun for over two hours.

Matt nodded to the picnic area on the north side of the Reflecting Pool. "You three go up and look at the inside of that memorial. It's very moving. We'll," he said nodding at Abbey, "take the kids over to one of the tables and give them a break on the other side of trees to get them out of the sun."

When Mac, Stella and Reed rejoined them, the kids were already enjoying PBJ's and a juice box, along with some chips. Matt, pulling his non-regulation FBI knife out of his pocket, cut up two of the apples Abbey had put in the cooler for the kids. Abbey handed him a piece of paper towel to clean the blade. He stuck the used towel in the plastic bag he had tied to the picnic table for garbage, already holding the cores of the apples. The rest dived into the sandwiches that Abbey and Stella had made earlier, as well as the chips and apples.

Matt bent over the cooler on the ground, trying to fish something out of the bottom. Mac standing behind him, noticed the handle of his Glock safely tucked in the backside of his cargo shorts as Matt's t-shirt, showing his support for the Green Bay Packers, pulled up. He grabbed Matt's elbow and gently pulled him away from the table a bit. "You're armed?"

"Bro, I'm a feeb. We're required; it comes with the credentials."

Mac shrugged. "Well that shit t-shirt you're wearing isn't doing its job, as usual," he whispered.

Matt looked at Mac's Chicago Bears t-shirt. "But my shirt does the job when it has to. You really have the guts to wear that in public?" he countered to his older brother with a smile as he moved back to the group. They both laughed as Matt dove back into the cooler and pulled out five beers.

"You know, you Packer fans do a few redeeming qualities," Mac said as accepted the beer.

Matt smiled at his older brother. "Bite me."

Stella and Abbey shared looks. Reed looked at them both. "After yesterday, I know better than to get between that," he smiled. The family enjoyed the lunch in the shade.

When they finished and cleaned up the area, with Matt depositing the garbage in the nearest receptacle, they moved towards the Vietnam Wall. Matt's cell went off in his pocket and he pulled it out.

Stella looked at him. "Is it a case?"

Matt, shaking his head, smiled at her. "No, we're all on vacation this week, and by our big boss' orders, on stand down as well."

Mac looked at him. "Even though you are vacation, you can get called in?"

"Yes, if the case merits the priority. But it happens very rarely." He smiled at Mac. "The stand down order takes care of that." He looked to see Mac, Stella and Reed with questions. "We had two cases last week," Matt explained. "Hotch and I had to split the team to get them done."

"How'd you do it," Mac asked.

"Hotch took Morgan and Reid, while Dave and I took the kick butt ladies." He smiled. "It worked out rather well, but not something we like to do. And the two cases pushed Garcia to the brink. But that's why we have the stand down order. It was a tough week trying to solve two cases simultaneously, which we all really worked together from our two sites."

Abbey rubbed her husband's arm. "So what's going on?"

Matt smiled at her and gave her a kiss. "Nothing major and a discussion we can have the Metro back home." Abbey knowing, and more importantly, trusting her husband, just smiled.

They group moved down the pathway that opened to their first view of "The Wall". Reed stopped dead in his tracks, as he looked at the black gabbro that rose from a triangle corner to the apex of the wall's height at over ten feet and then tapered down to the same shape at the other end. Shaking his head, he whispered, "So many names."

Matt standing next to him shook his head as well. "So many names of the lives lost to absolutely poor military planning."

Mac, pulling the wagon, came up alongside the two. "Matt, that's a pretty strong statement."

"Bro, don't get me wrong. I honor each and every man and woman whose name is on that Wall and their sacrifice. And I know I'm a Naval Academy graduate. But my junior year, I took one of my history classes: Military Planning in History. The Lt. Commander that taught the class was a historian. She spent most of the class covering the entire world history of mistakes; the last three weeks, she focused entirely on Vietnam and pretty much dissected it. We should have never been there in the first place and when we were, they did not do it right."

"What do mean, Uncle Matt? Never should have been there?"

"Reed, the French went there in the early 1950's and quickly determined you can't win a war against jungle fighters, fighting on their home turf. That's why they left. Their assessment was never listened to by US politicians and the Pentagon."

Reed looked at Matt. "So We Were Soldiers was pretty accurate?"

"Yeah, it was damn accurate." He rubbed Reed's shoulder. "But that doesn't mean we don't honor," Matt said, nodding at the names, "them."

As they entered to start up the concrete path that went past the Wall, Matt looked at Abbey and whispered, "I think the kids should know. They're old enough to understand." She nodded. "Do you need to look it up?"

"No; panel 18E, line 42." Mac looked at her. "My uncle; Tet Offensive."

They all somberly walked down the path. They took the time to look at the two statues that were near the Wall. Cam observed the first one. "Those soldiers are pointing at the Wall dad."

Matt rubbed his neck. "They're pointing at their brothers in arms, son."

Casee, now holding Stella's hand looked at the second, honoring the women that served. "There were girls there?"

"Yes, sweetheart, there was. They were nurses, taking care of the soldiers that got hurt. And some of them died too."

They made their way back to the Wall, and Abbey found the panel. It took her less than a minute to find the name and lovingly rub her fingers across the etching. Cam looked at his mother, squeezed her hand and simply questioned, "Mom?"

"James Carmichael; he was my uncle. I don't remember him. But that's his name, and we honor him Cam."

Reed put Colin up on his shoulders and helped him to rub his tiny fingers across the name of his great uncle. Mac lifted Casee up so she could do the same.

A US Park Ranger, standing by and noticing the exchange, walked up to the group and looked at Cam. Handing him a gold sheet of paper the size of an envelope and pencil, he said, "Why don't you take his name home with you son."

Matt nodded at his oldest son to take the paper and pencil and lifted him up on his shoulders. "Cam put the paper over Uncle James' name." Cam did as his dad said. "Now take the pencil and gently rub across the paper." Abbey reached up to help him start. Cam finished the rest and smiled at the Ranger, handing the pencil back.

"Thank you," he said.

"You're welcome. Always remember him son," he said, giving Cam's head a rub when Matt pulled him down. Abbey loving tucked the piece of paper in her bag.

As the family moved down the path, and away from the Wall, Mac and Matt looked at each other. The last one was going to be tough on them.

They made their way to the World War II Memorial. Matt and Mac looked around the Pacific Pavilion that honored that theatre of the war. Both being Marines, they knew their brothers in uniform bore the brunt of that war, along with the Navy.

They made their way to the Atlantic Pavilion. Standing with an arm draped over each other's shoulder, they looked at each other. They remembered their dad. A very young McKenna Taylor, whom his parents helped to lie about his age so he could get into the fight to save the world. And what he did at Buchenwald. Mac had sent Matt the mpeg he had received at the end of a case a couple years back.

Matt shook his head. "Damn, I wish dad had lived to see this. He, and all the rest of them, they deserve this."

"Yes, he did bro. They all do. They were the greatest generation." The brothers hugged.

###

A/N: Sowry folks. You know me. I can make it tissue time every once in a while. For you CM fans not knowing CSI:NY, Mac, and Matt's father (per a scripted episode of CSI:NY that was about arresting a former Nazi prison guard) was part of the Third Armored Division that liberated the Buchenwald death camp. At the end, Mac received an mpeg from of a Holocaust survivor recounting that he was found by McKenna Taylor.

A/N2: At each end of the Vietnam Wall, there is a kiosk where you can enter a name and find where that person's name is on the Wall, by panel and line designation. US Park Rangers are at the Wall fulltime. They give visitors the paper and pencil I described so you can take a copy of the name home. Each name is engraved into the black gabbro, so when you rub the pencil across, the name is highlighted where the pencil doesn't show up. I still have mine of B. Bradley Hartman, the only person from my hometown that was KIA in Vietnam.

A/N3: The nurse's statue at the Wall also holds a special place in my heart. I did a radio news show when I was in college, and the woman that was instrumental in getting that statue done and placed there lived in the same city of the college I attended. I had the very humbling experience of interviewing her for my show, shortly before the statue was dedicated on that hallowed ground.