 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Plan of the Day: Friday, 16 March 2001, 11: 50 am PST
Part One I'm writing this over the Pacific enroute to Pearl Harbor Hawaii. My day started early around 4:30 am PST, I got up to ready myself for the drive to LAX to board Delta Flight 203 that was scheduled to take off at 8:10 am. There was a brief delay in getting off the ground, but the flight up to this point has been painless. The only worry I have at this point of my adventure will be the total cost of parking my truck at the airport until I return Monday evening. I've wanted to vist Pearl Harbor my entire life and write about it before the new movie of the same name opens on Memorial Day 2001.I look forward to going feet dry when I arrive at Honolulu. Its been several years since I've seen my dear friend Joyce ( the last time was her trip back to Niceville, Florida to visit her brother. We went out and saw Star Trek Insurrection together ) We dated for a semester in college and have remained friends ever since. She is one of the few gals that can easly hold her own with the guys, in shooting, sword fighting, avational stuff concerning classic Stearmen bi-planes trainers, AND she is the only chick I know that I can willingly drag onboard American Battleships. Her father served onboard a U.S. Battleship during World War II, we have been trying to find out which one for some time. We do know that he was in Tokyo Bay aboard his battleship during the surrender of the Japanese onboard USS Missouri. She is about as cool as they come.
Much has changed since then, she's been married and now divorced, gave birth to a beautful son ( This will be the first time for me to meet her son, Jonathan Michael) and moved to Hawaii.
My life also has majorly changed, since I left my family and friends in my wonderful home in the deep south and moved to LA in August 2000. For many years I've had a spiritual need to visit Pearl harbor and pay my respects to the crew of the USS Arizona, and all thoughts killed. The sailors who died aboard her that fateful Sunday morning sixty years ago weren't that much different then me, when I wore the uniform. There were also neumorious brothers who served and died together aboard her. Americans need to always remember and appreciate the freedoms that we all enjoy were payed for by the blood of young men separated from their family sometimes for the first time in their lives. The crew of the Arizona represent about half of the casualties killed in the attack. For much of the twenties and thirties, the Japanese thought that America would not have the stomach to fight, due to our lack of a homogeneous culture. The War Lords tasked the attack to Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto who knew fully well the industrial might that the United States could bring to bear on the war effort. He had stuided for two years at Harvard University ( 1917-18) and then returned to serve as naval attache' in the Japanese embassy in Washington D. C. He knew fully well that Japan couldn't begin to compete with America in a war of attrition, but was tasked with the daunting task of planning an attack to cripple the American Pacific Fleet. The attack was based on the brilliant British attack on the Italian fleet, smashing it in Taranto Harbor. With this attack in mind, Japanese started deviseing a plan to eliminate the US. Pacific fleet, the main threat to Japanese expansion through the Pacific rim. The reaction to the attack united America completely beyond what the Japanese expected, ( they were expecting America didn't have the stomach to fight ) but the next day America declared war on Japan with the aim of avenging Pearl Harbor and to secure the unconditional surrender of Japan.The result crushed the Japanese nation and destroyed a generation of that islands nations sons. War is extremely ugly business, and should be avoided at all costs.
Anyway, back to the trip story..... I have no idea what to expect this weekend, but knowing Joyce it should be a fun weekend with plenty to do and see. It would be fun to get all the traditional Hawaii greetings, the flower reefs ( I would later learn that its called a lei ) but I'll have to see, since I've still got an hour of flight time or so left.YES!!!! When my flight landed Joyce ambushed me at the gate with the flower lei (pronounced lay) as the tradition greeting. She had with her, her beautiful son Jonathan and her friend Brett to greet me. We departed the airport and promptly went over the Pearl Harbor Naval Station to see some of the modern day warships moored and to visit the uniform shop so I could replace my ribbons that I lost since I got out of the navy on January 6, 1991. I wanted to make my uniform complete again for personal reasons. During this side trip I bought my USS Arizona BB-39 ball cap. In a different era, I could have then walked out side and caught the ferry to take me back out to the active duty USS Arizona tied up next to her sister battleships on Battleship Row. In this space time continuum that ship and her crew were extinguished in one blinding flash at 8:05am on that dark Sunday morning so long ago. It's been sixty years since then but this place radiates the voices of history. If you stretch out with your feelings you can hear them, you really, really can.
|
|
|
|
|
|
After lunch we took a drive up into the heart of the island to a spectacular vista called Pali Lookout that you just have to see to believe. During this trip, we played the new Gladiator sound track that was just released a few weeks ago. It made the drive very fitting as I explored the spectacular sights on Oahu. We took a grand loop to the north side or windward side of the island and around the Ko'olau mountain range and back down thought the lush tropical plains in the middle of this tropical paradise. During the drive I could see in my mind the attack air craft on the way to destiny. This paradice on earth, has seen the face of battle before, but never taken to the technoligical level that was brought to bare on the anchored fleet. The sharp peaks are covered with lush green follage the likes of which only gets described in Thoreau, Wadsworth and Emerson storys. During the trip little Jonathan sacked out in his car seat, which was precious as can be. We drove up to the beaches and skirted around to the extreem western side of the island and then back home. I found myself constantly looking to the skys and in my minds eye, I could see the aluminum clouds of fighters filling the sky with explosive iron rain. After a 3 hour drive around the island we returned to their home to unpack the car and get ready for dinner.
Friday evening Joyce and Bret took me to a place called the Dixie Bar and Grill for a down home cook meal, including fried okra that both Joyce and really enjoyed. Brett is from North California, so he didn't quite get the whole idea of fried okra, but Joyce and I are both from the south, so we dove right in!Later, we stopped by a store and picked up beer and munchies to take back to our lair to devour at our leisure. The evening was a delightful tropical cool evening so we sat out on the back porch and enjoyed catching up on our lives. Brett is a first dan in Tae Kwon Do (first degree black belt) so martial arts were discussed as well as our family backgrounds and histories. Great evening just hanging out with dear friends, some I've known for years and one I just had the privilege of meeting the first time that day
Today was spent onboard the USS Arizona memorial. We experienced some logistical problems with transportation earlier in the day, but once the those were solved, Joyce and I drove to the Arizona Memorial Museum. A friend of hers, Nate Campbell joined us and we checked out the US Park Service Museum for the Arizona. The exhibit has plenty to check out, but time always seems to be finite and you have to watch the time to make sure you squeeze everything in.
The grounds that the memorial stands on is land fill that extends out into the harbor. The museum is well suited to show the history of the attack and the sacrifice of the crew when that armor piercing bomb penetrated the hull and detonated the forward magazines killing the ship and crew.
The tour includes a thirty minute movie that gives a good overview of the attack for the uneducated. After the film ends you exit the theater and board the tour boat. The ride out to the memorial was brief, but you get the approach along battleship row where the USS Nevada ( BB 36 ) and the repair ship USS Vestal ( AR-4 ) was moored. Click here for image.
Going aboard the memorial was very spitural moment for me. For my entire life, I have felt like I've already been of this place. The Miller family back home in Florida had helped to perpare me for this moment. They are among my closest friends and they have very strong ties with Hawaii. My first time standing on the deck that straddles the hull I couldn't help but be moved as I stood above the tomb and looked down into the dark water at the final resting place for 1102 sailors. Since then, veterans who survived that dark Sunday have been buried with their fallen shipmates within the barbette of turret number three. This armored cylinder pokes above the water line marking the aft end of battleship number thirty nine's resting place.
It was hard to do all the things that I wanted to do while I was aboard the memorial, but there was large numbers of tourist visiting the memorial on St. Patrick's' Day. The crowd for the most part were quite reverent.
I joined the US Navy because of my love for America, and I felt an obligation to serve in the nation's armed forces and that places such as Pearl Harbor are sacred to me. I have always needed to come to Pearl Harbor to pay my respects to the crew of the Arizona and all the service personnel that were killed that day. I feel that all Americans need to be educated in our history and be aware that our freedoms that we all enjoy were paid for in blood and sacrifice.When I stepped in to the chamber on the Ford Island side of the memorial and viewed the wall that contains the names of the crew, I couldn't help but get choked up. I dropped to my knees and prayed to God to give eternal rest and comfort to the crew. This is hallowed ground, and I really felt the reverence of the moment. Everyone on the memorial was quiet and hushed. No one bothered me while I knelt inside the chamber and paid my respects to my fallen brethren. It has the simular impact on me that the Vietnam Wall on the Mall in Washington D. C. and the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem has, both of which I've been to. The quite solitude of the memorial perminates through out, and lends it self well to quite reflection for the honored dead and the turning point in American History that dark Sunday truly is. I prayed on my knees for the eternal rest for the crew, and so that my closes friends childern, Jonathan Michael and Pearson Phoenix Langston might never know such a day of infamy. If all future wars were left to the veterans of the past, we would never fight one again.
| BACK to the Washington Navy Yard | Foward to Victory Onboard USS Missouri |
 |
 |
 |
