Travelogue: San Antonio

The Alamo, Riverwalk and Southern Texas in Autumn 2021

Mine was another short visit this fall to a sacred place in American history. It had been a year since I paid respects to the men who died fighting for freedom at the Alamo. The old mission, converted into a fort, is located in San Antonio, Texas.

The Alamo, fall 2021

I walked there in the morning again, approaching from the front. I toured the grounds. I thought about what happened here. One of my teachers was a war and military historian at Duke University. He had stressed the importance of honoring the war dead in reverence for their commitment to defending a just and free society based on rights. The Alamo is a place I intend to visit again. I’ve studied the siege that once happened here, where one young American pledged in writing that his basic choice was “victory or death”, but there is more to know. I do not pray. If I did, what I thought on that particular autumn morning could be considered as a kind of prayer.