Pearl Harbor

While I know Clay is eager to learn the details of how we managed to be coaxed into becoming members of Hilton's Grand Vacation club (aka got suckered into buying a time share), he will have to wait a bit longer to get the nuts and bolts. Today's entry must focus, of course, on Pearl Harbor. I will say that I've never walked into a meeting more certain of the outcome (get in/ get out/ get ourselves to the ticket gate by 9:30 -- the meeting started at 8:30) and been more wrong :) As precious minutes passed, we wondered if we'd get shut out of the memorial two times in one week, but Ken (our new best friend) told us that Friday and Saturday were usually the two best days to get tickets, as they are the transition days when people arrive or leave the island. He also told us that this is the first of three "Japanese weeks," that coincide with the school vacation in Japan. This explained why we often felt more like we were walking around Tokyo than Honolulu.

So... Ken was right. We left the hotel around 12:30, got to Uncles, his lunch spot suggestion - a fish market and restaurant smack on one of the piers and a clear favorite with the locals - by 1:00 and finally pulled into the parking lot for Pearl Harbor just after 2:00. And we got tickets! The memorial closes at 5:00, but we had just the right amount of time to visit the Arizona (which is very much timed - first you watch the movie, then the Navy escorts you over by boat, you stay your allotted time, then back on the boat for the trip back) and the accompanying museum and grounds - all with our beloved audio tour. The great part about going so late was that we didn't feel as though we were fighting with thousands to get a glimpse at an exhibit. The boat to and from, along with the actual memorial itself, was certainly full, but not uncomfortably so. And when we returned, most of those on that trip to the Arizona with us concluded their visit and headed to their cars. So we had the museum and grounds blissfully to ourselves.

Until the Japanese invaded. Around 4:30, what appeared to be a couple hundred Japanese tour group members arrived and swarmed around one exhibit after another, listening to their Japanese speaking tour guide describe what they were seeing. It was an odd sensation. When a guard told us it was time to leave, I asked him if such groups often arrived so late in the afternoon. He said that some of the groups don't visit the Arizona, so they just come to see the museum. When one pesky adolescent boy pointed to a model of the wrecked Arizona under the memorial and said to his father, "look at that mess! Why would anyone want to go visit that anyway?" Maddie had to remind me that he was just a child.

On the flip side, one of the most moving moments for me was at the memorial itself, where an older Japanese woman placed a flower wreath on the ground where the names of the fallen are etched. She then bowed to the names. Very touching.

The memorial itself is one of the most powerful I've ever seen - on par with the Vietnam Memorial in terms of the stark design somehow being exactly right for what must be conveyed. The designer created a space where one can look out at the tiny pools of oil that still deposit on the ocean top some 60+ years later, can see parts of the battleship that peek over the surface, can look down one large opening to watch the fish swim over another part of the ship. The place is all about cross breezes, staggering views of the mountains over which the Japanese dive bombers arrived undetected (actually, they were detected - they were just mislabeled as a group of American planes that was expected to arrive that morning), and quiet contemplation.

Apparently many of the survivors of the Arizona have chosen to make the ship their final resting home; a Navy officer explained how small funeral ceremonies are held right on the memorial, which conclude when a diver takes an urn of the soldier's ashes to place in a special room on a special shelf reserved just for those who have already been buried at sea, long after the rest of their shipmates. Of the 25 remaining survivors, 18 more have chosen to be buried this way when they die.

I hope some of my photos capture the power and beauty of this place. Kerrie wondered if she would be able to visit. The way the whole memorial is set up makes it almost impossible not to feel reverant but also inspired. Watching the film before we took the boat ride over, reading the stories (and letters) of the men who died that day, and walking over the sunken ship itself, all made me feel very close to history. This experience was similar to visiting the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas. You could more easily imagine - and therefore remember - the lives of these men as you stood in the same spot those lives came to an end.