Pearl Harbor

Okay... I'm finally getting around the blogging about the amazing event we got to be part of while in Hawaii. We happened to arrive at the USS Arizona Memorial just as they were getting ready to start a special program in honor of Junior Ranger day. I never imagined how "special" the program would be.

Before I get into the program, I thought I would add this quote that I found by Rick Kogan in this past Sunday's Chicago Tribune Magazine...

"History is, of course, available by many means. There are books, documentaries, Wikipedia. But history delivered firsthand is a rare commodity and it packs a punch that dazzles more than the flashiest Web site."

That was so very true that day at Pearl Harbor. No one read a history lesson to the children for that program, they didn't watch a film.... no, they heard the unfolding of the events on the day of the attack by the survivors themselves. It was almost too much to take at times. The attack on Pearl Harbor was something that was in history books... not sitting, living, right in front of me. An absolutely amazing experience. Survivor biographies are on the kids' page.

First the children heard the stories from the five survivors...
After the stories and a question and answer period, the kids received their Junior Ranger badges...
(Clara wasn't happy most of that morning because we had just found out our flight had been canceled and had no idea when we would be heading home... she decided at that moment that she desperately missed our dog, Friday)

Next, they got to have their Junior Ranger certificates signed by the survivors...
They received a packet of information about Pearl Harbor and an orchid to place in the water at the memorial.

Next we watched a short film and got onto the boat to go out to the memorial.

The USS Arizona...
The list of names was overwhelming...

After that we boarded the boat to go back to the visitor center. We made a brief stop at the gift shop to pick up this...
Graphic Library: The Attack on Pearl Harbor
Alex has the one about the Great Chicago Fire so he thought he would like the one on Pearl Harbor as well.

From there we boarded a bus with the other passengers from our canceled flight to be driven around Honolulu while they tried to figure out what to do with us. :-)