December 7 is Thursday. Today I went to the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor. And it gave me the creeps. See, I've seen pictures of the memorial before, and was a bit underwhelmed. It turns out that I just didn't understand what I was seeing because it had never been described in any of the pictures I had seen. They were all taken from the side. I went to the memorial, and was surprised to see that it involved a boat ride out to it...a white building in the distance that looks like a stark white chopstick rest. We docked, and I went into the building. A large empty room with window holes in the sides and top. It was then that I realised that this memorial building was a bridge that straddled the remains of the sunken battleship just below the water's surface I had no idea. Looking down through the water at the ship gave me the creeps. For just a moment I was watching it sink from the remote ocean expanse and feeling the chill of a cold, lonely tragic death. Everything seems so shallow and harmless in that harbor, and it was chilling to realise that I was looking at a mass grave. There's a spot just a few feet from the building where oil still leaks from the ship....for the past 65 years. In the back of the memorial building, all the victims' names are posted on the wall. Now, looking at obits in the paper, it's just names. Looking in the phone book, it's just names. But standing on a bridge straddling a sunken battleship, they're Names. I don't know how to describe that feeling. I stood there for a long time just looking at names. Likewise, watching the History Channel, it's just a sinking ship. In a history book, it's just a battle. But back in the museum, it's survivors describing on videotape how they would reach out to help a fellow soldier escape the flames only to have the skin come off in their hands, or watch in horror as thier faces fell off. I thought that when I went to Pearl harbor today, I would see a memorial and tour a battleship. I didn't get to tour a battleship on this trip, and I did much more than see a memorial...I actually experienced pain from it. And, unfortunately, that is a pain that is rarely experienced by those who start wars.
Wow Avvie, sounds like a memorable experience. I'd love to get that chance some day. I've been to a few places that have really caught me by surprise, it's always a great experience. Thanks for sharing.
its kind off the same subject but I mean everyone must have seen Band of Brothers from start to finish once at least (ive seen it like 50 tims through and through ) well its just ive met the REAL Donald Malarkey and I was just flabergasted didn't know what to say to him just weird seing someone whom i watched jump into a field a german fire to fins a Luger
I had a somewhat similar experience when I did the cassette tour of Alcatraz. I thought it was going to be really cheesy but was surprisingly captivated hearing the stories of the inmates (like BirdMan, etc.) while directly in front of their cell.
I thought about it being Dec. 7th when I woke up this morning. It will get little if any media attention and even less from the youth, too bad.
