While in Hawaii we visited the USS Arizona Memorial. For some reason, war memorials are always very emotional for me. I really couldn’t tell you why. I’m a child of the Vietnam era. I remember the nightly offensive/causality reports on the news. I remember the feeling of “why can’t we win this war?”. I remember the feeling that America had been defeated when the last air lifts out of Saigon happened.
World War II and the attack on Pearl Harbor happened well before I was born. I loved reading the history of that time. The heroics, the battles, the planning. My visit to Pearl Harbor was my first chance to see this up close and personal. The shear size of the remains of that sunken battleship were just hard to comprehend. To have a ship like that sink in just minutes is almost unbelievable.
I guess that as long as people can hate, or covet what someone else has, there will be violence. Whether it is on the personal level like a mugging, the country level like a war, or on the religious level like a terrorist attack.
It is my hope that the victims of blind violence will never be forgotten. I hope that the men of the US Navy lost during the attack on Pearl Harbor will be remembered. I hope that people will remember that these men gave that last great measure of self to protect our right to live our American lives.
God’s Rest |