In Washington, a double salute

Next weekend’s dedication of the National World War II Memorial -- the first monument in the capital to honor both veterans and the home front -- is generating a frenzy of activity in Washington, D.C., which is launching a summer-long tribute to what newscaster Tom Brokaw dubbed the “greatest generation.”

Norman Rockwell’s “Four Freedoms,” the paintings inspired by Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1941 State of the Union address, will be displayed at the Corcoran Gallery of Art on 17th Street. World War II-themed movies, such as “The Best Years of Our Lives” and “Patton, “ will be shown at the Kennedy Center.

Veterans of the Office of Strategic Services, the World War II precursor to the CIA, will speak at the International Spy Museum. Holocaust survivors and concentration camp liberators will speak at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Hotels are offering packages. The Ritz-Carlton in Pentagon City has designed a special memory book for those who want to record their recollections of the war.

Chefs and bartenders are adding World War II items to their menus. Bryan Voltaggio, the chef at Charlie Palmer Steak, wanted to honor the ingenuity of cooks on the home front, who had to fashion meals with little meat. “All the prime cuts were sent to the military,” he said. The result: an appetizer of braised tongue served with cabbage.

The celebration is in part an attempt by the capital to cement its recovery from the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. After the attacks, Washington locked down for months. Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport closed. The FBI building, the Capitol and the White House shut their doors to tours. Schools canceled trips.

As the $9-billion-a-year tourism industry collapsed, 27,000 bellhops, waitresses, cleaners and other employees were thrown out of work. Now, Washington is recovering, and the city is eager to share its fortune with a generation that knows comebacks. Almost every museum and cultural institution in town is contributing.

Union Station will display 100 photos that Chuck Zoeller, the curator at the Associated Press, helped select.

“It’s hard to upstage Joe Rosenthal’s flag raising on Iwo Jima” -- which Zoeller said had been unfairly tagged as staged -- “but here are some lesser-known favorites, virtually never seen,” he said. Among them: photos of a B-17 bomber flying over soldiers on camelback in Tunisia and Jack Benny playing the violin, surrounded by appreciative GIs.

Max Desfor will be on hand to watch the pictures go up. He and Rosenthal are the only surviving Associated Press staff photographers from World War II.

“I’m really glad that I’m here now to see this,” Desfor said. “Too many of my friends and competitors have all gone.”

For more information on the city- wide celebration, including hotel packages, visit www.washington.org/americacelebrates.