A run of sunny days lately. The early cicadas are bleating and the early crickets are singing, and while the firefly population has been slender this year, they’ve made their high-summer presence known at dusk recently. Much of the nation is hot, we are warm by day, cool at night.

Kansasville, Wisconsin is an unincorporated community in the Town of Dover, in the southeast part of the state, not to be confused with the Village of Dover, which is not too far away, but still in a different county.

Along the highway Wisconsin 11 a few miles east of Burlington is the Kansasville Wisconsin Veterans Memorial Wayside Park. A nearby VFW post, Gifford-Larsen Post No. 7924, maintains the park.

“Post 7924 is named in honor of Master Sergeant Elmer (Bill) Gifford who was killed in action on 19 February 1944 and Sergeant Einar Larson Jr. who was killed in action on 15 January 1945 at Halten, France,” says the post’s minimal Facebook page.

A tank astride the corn.

“Initially produced in 1960, over 15,000 M60s were built by Chrysler and first saw service in 1961,” says the Federation of American Scientists Military Analysis Network. “Production ended in 1983, but 5,400 older models were converted to the M60A3 variant ending in 1990.”

Looks like this particular tank’s last stop before resting on wayside park concrete was the Wisconsin National Guard, once upon a time.

Chrysler, incidentally, sold sold Chrysler Defense to General Dynamics over 40 years ago, and as General Dynamics Land Systems, the entity makes tanks even now in Ohio.

40 mm anti-aircraft guns.

I’m not as keen to look up its details, but I will say that it is pointing the wrong direction if there’s an attack from Illinois, whose border is only a few miles to the south.

A bit of rust, a hint of impermanence.

A handsome piece of mobile artillery.

“To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace.” — President George Washington, First Address to a Joint Session of Congress (State of the Union), 1790.