Pearl Harbor

My first visit to Hawaii was April 2003 for a friend's wedding. Since my father was a World War II veteran, a visit to Pearl Harbor was at the top of my must-see list in Oahu -- right behind dipping my toes in the water on Waikiki and enjoying a Mai Tai at Duke's Barefoot Bar.

Many of my friends had visited Pearl Harbor before me, so I had gotten great advice on what time of day to go and other logistics when I started planning my trip. But nothing anyone can tell you about a visit to this sacred place prepares you for how you feel being there.

I visited Pearl Harbor on a cloudless sunny day, much like it was on the day the attack occurred. Standing at the visitors center and looking across the water where the remains of the USS Arizona lay waiting for me, I couldn't help but think how unfair it is that the universe operates on a system of balance, blending breathtaking beauty with unthinkable horror in the same moments of time.

On the boat ride out to the monument over the Arizona, you receive strict instructions on how to behave once you arrive. There is no talking while on the monument, for it is a place to contemplate the meaning of the sacrifice of the 1,177 crew members that died that day -- especially those entombed in the sunken ship below your feet.

One end of the floating memorial houses a marble wall with the names of the victims. In the eerie quiet, I read the names through a blur of tears. Talking may be discouraged, but tears are appropriate here.

On the boat ride back to the visitors center, I found myself unable to speak, and for once I was happy to be traveling alone. I am uncertain I would have found he right words to express what I felt even if there had been someone to share them with.

I thought not only of the lives that were lost directly that day, but the totality of losses sustained around the world from the chain of events that began that fateful day. Over 60 million military and civilian casualties world wide during World War II. Countless others, like my father, changed by the war forever in spite of surviving it.

On the 70th anniversary of the vicious attack on this peaceful island paradise, I think back to my visit to the USS Arizona, I think about my father and all members of The Greatest Generation that fought for the freedom I still enjoy today, and I shed tears of gratitude all over again.