Pearl Harbor

We visited Pearl Harbor today. It was well worth the visit. We drove out to Pearl Harbor and after finally finding a place to park we made our way to the entrance. We had to get tickets and then wait a long time for our turn to go. We went through the museum displays while we waited. Seeing the actual artifacts of the sailors and read the words of the letters they last mailed home was so sad. One letter of a mom anxiously waiting for word from her son really got to me. He died on December 7th.

I was amazed to see some Japanese sailors touring the site. At one point they were standing so that I could see the white memorial off in the distance behind them. It seems so ironic that the first time I ever saw the Arizona memorial I was looking at it past Japanese sailors. We finally got in line and got to start the tour. The first thing we saw was a film about the bombing of Pearl Harbor. It really sets the mood before you get to go see the memorial. We loaded onto the ferry and took our seats. I enjoyed the ocean breeze as it blew in my face on the way across the harbor. When we got there we climbed stairs onto the Memorial and we just quietly walked around. The wall of names is very sobering. Then to stand and look down at the rusting hulk of the Arizona is awesome. It is hard to take it in, that you are looking at an actual ship, in which the remains of many sailors are forever at rest. I think the thing that made it really seem real to me was the rising oil. The day before the bombing of Pearl Harbor the Arizona had had it's oil tanks filled. That oil is slowly leaking out. You can just sit and watch that oil slowly come to the surface, little bubbles of it that rise slowly and hit the surface and then slowly float away. Oil that would have been used by that ship to sail the sea, is now just rising and floating away. I placed a picture of the oil at the end of the Pearl Harbor post.

I am so sad to think of those young men that died so horrible. I honor them. I think of them and I'm so glad we have this special memorial to always remember them.