The USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor . . .

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Today is our third day being docked in Honolulu. Yesterday morning, we disembarked the passengers from our first Hawaii cruise, then in the afternoon and evening our next group of passengers embarked the ship. Two days ago, when we first arrived in Honolulu, myself and a couple girls tried to go to Pearl Harbor to visit the USS Arizona Memorial. We arrived too late to get tour tickets that fit our plans for the rest of the day. I had to work all day yesterday. So today was our last chance to try to do the tour at Pearl Harbor. Tickets are free to go out onto the USS Arizona Memorial, but they are first come first served, no reservations. It fills up quickly! In order to get early tickets, to ensure we had time to do other things with the rest of our day, we were up at 6:30am to get off the ship. We were at Pearl Harbor shortly after 7am. But we were successful in our mission - we got tickets for 8:20am, the second tour of the day!

It meant we had about an hour to wait before our tour. I looked through the bookshop a bit. Mostly I toured around. I paid for the audio tour guide. It was really good. I knew much of the history already, but it was the personal accounts that made it powerful for me. Especially listening to the voices of survivors talk about being trapped underwater, seeing the ship hit, losing their friends in the attack. I walked along the pathway by the water, listening to the stories, reading plaques and just taking in the view of the harbor.

When it was our turn, we boarded the ferry that took us out across the water to the memorial. The memorial sits above the water and looks down on the Arizona. A couple parts of the ship sticks out above the water. Most of it you can still see below the water’s surface. When I looked down through the viewing well, I saw coral and plantlife growing on the ship; fish swam around. It was both beautiful and sad.

There was a wall in the memorial with the names of all of the people killed in the attack. Looking at that huge list of names drove home how many people were lost that day.

Then it was time to ferry back to the shore. So much of the site and the tour spoke to the American people which didn’t impact me. But I can understand and appreciate and remember loss and war and tragedy. It’s all such messy stuff. Regardless of how it connects to me nationally or politically, it adds to understanding. I am glad to have gone and seen.

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