DECEMBER 7...

I was just over at TX's placeAnd he made comment about visiting places in his career that were still visible from Dec 7, 1941.

When I was 8 years old we were stationed in Hawaii. We lived on Ford Island, right in the middle of Pearl Harbor. Our housing area, was across the runway and situated on the edge of the water, right next to several of the battleships that were destroyed. I remember going to the edge and looking down on the rocks and seeing all of the oil still seeping up from the sunken relics. There was a ship over on it's side, with it's bottom facing towards us. I can't remember the name of the ship, but I think I was told it was the USS California...Don't know.The bottom was all brown and rusty, even after only 13 years. I remember walking into the Movie Theater and the Base Hospital, and seeing the holes in the concrete where the bullets from the Japanese planes had hit. They were not repaired. It was really thick concrete, so the scars still showed, and the building was still very functional.

To get to school, I had to take a bus across Ford Island, along the water and over to the Boat Launch where we were put on a NAVY Launch and taken across Pearl Harbor to the school on the main island. I can remember going across the water by the USS ARIZONA (way before the memorial was built) and being told that there were still 1000 men in the ship under the water. It gave me a spooky feeling, to look at that water and think that there were dead people in there. I could see the ship under the very dirty and oil water, and that vision has never left my memory.

It didn't really sink in until I was older and was learning more about US History. Knowing that I was there 13 years after the beginning of WWII boggled my mind. That war was ancient history or so I thought. Little did I realize that men to this very day still around in coffee shops on every base in the country and re-live their experiences of that war. Some even bring in their mementos to pass around and share. SOme wear in their medals, and it is awe inspiring to see these grizzled, old wrinkled men that you have known the majority of your life, and know that they were right there fighting a war where you once slept. You would think that the world would learn from these wars wouldn't you? Why don't we listen to old grizzled, wrinkled men? They have been there, they know...