Pearl Harbor

There is so much to do and see on the island of Oahu. We haven't seen too many sights because we knew that visitors would inevitably come and we would get bored of visiting the same tourist destinations again and again, so we were saving our trips for those special occasions!

My parents were here in March, so we made our first trip out to the Pearl Harbor memorials. We visited the museum of the Pacific Air Force, which was small, but still neat. We also toured the USS Missouri, where Japan surrendered to the US in 1945.

The most memorable part of the day was the trip out to the USS Arizona Memorial. I knew they had built the memorial to this ship that had been destroyed during the attack of Pearl Harbor in 1941, but I didn't realize that the Arizona herself was still there, what was left of her, anyway. The navy has shuttle boats set up to take passengers from the ticket sight to the memorial out in the middle of the harbor. As I approached the white, sleek memorial I felt such a surge of emotion: gratitude for the young men who gave their lives on that day, and for all the service men and women who continue to put themselves in harms way and grief for the numerous, numerous losses of life that day.

Words can't even express how I felt as I stepped into the memorial and looked out and saw the sunken hull and mess of burned metal that became a graveyard for so many that day.