"Freedom is not Free." ~ Anonymous

During her Diamond Jubilee year...

to say HM Queen Elizabeth II was busy, 
is quite an understatement.

One event marking her 60 years as Queen...

was the unveiling of the memorial...
 "dedicated to the 55,573 airmen from the United Kingdom British Commonwealth and Allied Nations who served in RAF Bomber Command and lost their lives over the course of the second world war."

To be completely honest...

we stumbled across this memorial while on our way to the New Years Day Parade.

The actual dedication June 2012 in Green Park must have been incredible as poppies were dropped overhead in memory of those lives lost.

This memorial evoked the same feeling I had seeing the Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C.

Source

Those human faces. 

At both memorials, they seem to portray the unspoken relief of a recognition of service and ultimate sacrifice that took years to come about.

Our visit to the Bomber Command Memorial provided a bit of a time warp...

 as a man and his Penny-farthing paid his respect.

Happy last day of January!