Well, see isn't quite the right word. This would be my last chance to feel it.
The USS Arizona memorial has both a museum on land and the actual memorial that is in the harbor. We picked up our tickets and wandered around the museum, waiting our turn to catch the boat to the small rectangle of white floating on the water. As I read through the various museum exhibits, I realized that these were average people. The pictures of sailors who fought and died at Pearl weren't guys who woke up every day thinking they would pick up a Bronze Star or a Navy Cross today. They were 19 and 20 year old kids from New York, California, and everywhere inbetween.
What separated them from everyone else was that when the bombs started falling, they each did their duty. They looked after their people, they provided leadership when no one else was available to lead, and they sacrificed for the other men on their ships.
I was shocked at how many of the sailors who survived Pearl Harbor stayed in the Navy until the end of the war. And into Korea. And into Viet Nam.
As all this was sinking in, we stepped into the small movie theater that precedes the ferry to the memorial and watched a film on Pearl Harbor. In it was the actual footage of several of the ships being bombed, including the Arizona. I rememer hearing in history class that the sound of Arizona exploding was something that stuck with all the survivors for the rest of their lives.
Hearing it in Dolby digital was equally shocking.
As we took the boat over to the memorial, we were reminded that this was a war grave, that more than 900 Americans still lay under the water directly below us. We were asked to be quiet, and I was nervous about this. We, as a people, do not have a reputation for being quiet. Americans are often described as loud (myself included). But when we actually stepped foot on the memorial I was shocked by what I heard.
Nothing. No one was speaking. There were footsteps shuffling, and some cameras clicking, but of the 150 people getting of the ferry and the 150 people waiting to get on, no one was talking. And for the majority of my time on the USS Arizona Memorial, it was properly quiet.
It wasn't just when I looked over the side at the oil visibly leaking from the battleship. It wasn't just when I saw the names of all the men who were killed in those few, short minutes on Dec 7. It was all the way until we were getting back on the ferry to leave and I noticed a beautiful sight right above me, reminding me what those men died for, and why the lump was in my throat the whole time.
