Monday morning, March 28We started out the day visiting Pearl Harbor. While we were driving there, Rick asked Mom what her memories were of that day. It was VERY interesting to her talk about "the day that will live in infamy" from her perspective. She was 14 years old. Her only brother Dean later joined the war effort and served in the navy in the pacific theater. He saw many years of the horrors of war and returned a changed man. Luckily he returned. Many did not.
Our Dad was drafted into the army when he finished serving his mission in the New England states and was sent to Germany just before the war ended there and would have been sent to the Pacific to fight if the US hadn't bombed Japan and ended the war.
I'm so grateful for a generation of men and women who stepped forward to defend our liberties and our way of life. We visited the interesting and informative museums and listened to a recorded tape describing the things we were seeing by Jamie Lee Curtis whose father Tony Curtis served in the Pacific. It was very informative and well done and I learned a lot about the bombing of Pearl Harbor and why the Japanese decided to launch an assault against the United States. They truly did awake a sleeping giant. We were taken out to the Arizona war ship memorial in the Pearl Harbor bay on a small boat. The Arizona memorial is the only sunken ship from the day that still lies in the harbor. It entombed over 950 men when it sank and it remains a stark reminder of that day when the United States was attacked and entered into World War II.
After that experience we drove around the south east shore of Oahu to see the sights. There are beautiful beaches along Hanauma bay and also very majestic and rocky shores along the south side. We found a lovely beach at Kailua beach and put on our swimming suits for a dip in the ocean. The water was lovely! It was so warm and the air temperature was about the same as the water temperature. We had a good soak and loved watching all the people enjoying the different water activities around us. It was fun to see Mom enjoy the water. Rick was his usual self swimming out to sea and enjoying himself immensely. Carol and I had a good time swimming around and enjoying the water.
We got back to the hotel, sat in the hot tub and ordered some pizza to be delivered to our room.It was a lovely day. Day three of a vacation in paradise.
1 comment:
The memorial and museums at Pearl Harbor are stirring, and extremely interesting. I am grateful to those brave soldiers who were there and to those who fought bravely in the Pacific theater, including my dad. They saved the world.
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