 | View of the shoreline from the Pearl Harbor ferry to the USS Arizona Monument. |
I was reading an Op-Ed piece by journalist John F. Burns in Sunday's New York Times entitled, "The Things I Carried Back".
In the article Mr. Burns quoted a fellow foreign correspondent who once said, "Never forget, it's not how far you've traveled, it's what you've brought back".
As I've just returned from traveling over 9,000 miles round-trip (See posts from
3/30/2015 - 4/10/2015), that quote resonated with me and got me to pondering what I had in fact brought back with me from Hawaii besides a few aloha shirts and some boxes of chocolate-covered macadamia nuts.
In truth I did find Hawaii, or what I saw of it, to be a thought-provoking place: it's history, its natural beauty, the culture and language of the native Hawaiians who are, in fact, my fellow Americans; the fact that our President came from this place.
But of all my impressions of Hawaii, I did have what felt like an epiphany of sorts in Honolulu while touring Pearl Harbor. (See post from 4/3/2015).
Pearl Harbor, the America naval base that was once home to our Pacific war fleet, is now our national memorial to those who were killed during its bombing by Japan on December 7, 1941, the event that launched America into its inevitable entry into World War II.
But now, though a visit to Pearl Harbor immerses one in the terrible events not only of that morning in December but of the war that ensued, the overall feel of Pearl Harbor is that this is, in fact, a nice place to spend the day:
In the article Mr. Burns quoted a fellow foreign correspondent who once said, "Never forget, it's not how far you've traveled, it's what you've brought back".
As I've just returned from traveling over 9,000 miles round-trip (See posts from
3/30/2015 - 4/10/2015), that quote resonated with me and got me to pondering what I had in fact brought back with me from Hawaii besides a few aloha shirts and some boxes of chocolate-covered macadamia nuts.
In truth I did find Hawaii, or what I saw of it, to be a thought-provoking place: it's history, its natural beauty, the culture and language of the native Hawaiians who are, in fact, my fellow Americans; the fact that our President came from this place.
But of all my impressions of Hawaii, I did have what felt like an epiphany of sorts in Honolulu while touring Pearl Harbor. (See post from 4/3/2015).
Pearl Harbor, the America naval base that was once home to our Pacific war fleet, is now our national memorial to those who were killed during its bombing by Japan on December 7, 1941, the event that launched America into its inevitable entry into World War II.
But now, though a visit to Pearl Harbor immerses one in the terrible events not only of that morning in December but of the war that ensued, the overall feel of Pearl Harbor is that this is, in fact, a nice place to spend the day:
 | crowded with tourists, |
...of all ages,
 |  |
 | ...5,000 visitors a day from all over the world, |
 | ...many Japanese visitors. |
...all of us here spending a day in this lovely place,
...in this glorious weather,
...all of us here with no animosity among us to honor the dead and experience a piece of our shared history of this planet that we all live on.
And so this is what I brought back from my visit to Pearl Harbor:
That Pearl Harbor, as it is now, is as it should be, Americans harboring in this beautiful bay not a war fleet but a welcoming center open to the whole world; Japanese coming to Pearl Harbor not to destroy it but to enjoy it.
As I walked among the other tourists visiting Pearl harbor I kept thinking of the verse from Isaiah, 2:4:
They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.
And so this is what I brought back from my visit to Pearl Harbor:
That Pearl Harbor, as it is now, is as it should be, Americans harboring in this beautiful bay not a war fleet but a welcoming center open to the whole world; Japanese coming to Pearl Harbor not to destroy it but to enjoy it.
As I walked among the other tourists visiting Pearl harbor I kept thinking of the verse from Isaiah, 2:4:
They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.
 | The last American warship ever built, the USS Missouri, sits permanently docked in Pearl Harbor where it has been turned into a museum. |
They will not use it to train for war any more.
They'll just use other things.
They'll just use other things.
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