It seems obvious now, but I hadn't fully realised that Washington, DC literally is the ten square miles around the Capitol with the sole purpose of housing and facilitating representation, government departments, memorials, museums and a huge security presence.

I spent time in the National Archives viewing the original copies of the Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights. I toured the inside of the Capitol Building in all its palacial grandeur. I visited the Washington and Lincoln Memorials along with War Memorials for the Second World War and for Vietnam. The latter consists of the names of the dead inscribed onto a black marble wall. It was galling to see how long this list was and to know that even more died in WWII. The names were also on display in printed books, thicker than any telephone directory I have ever seen.

The sheer number of such memorials is a chilling reminder that the duty to serve the country and the ideals codified into the Declaration and Constitution is very much part of being American.

Having spent a month in the country, now, piecing together fragments of opinion, trying to absorb feelings and culture from people and places, learning to appreciate what it is that defines America and what went into making it so, it was satisfying to see what is now the heart of the American Machine. And tonight, as I take my final train from Washington, DC back up to New York, closing the loop and bringing a certain sense of conclusion to this trip, it seems like a good time to reflect on this.

Even this country, which emphatically rejected the notion of monarchs, dictators and tyrants, insisting proudly that the people themselves should be sovereign and all men are created equal, still finds itself today with one group of men sending another off to fight in battle. So, no matter how good the ideals, there is still a very frightening reality to this democratic republic.