There are places where history happened where you can walk and feel the past. Places like Dealey Plaza in Dallas and the dusty streets of Tombstone, Arizona, seem frozen in time.
In Dallas, visitors might feel as if they’re stepping into a frame of the Zapruder film. At the same time, in Tombstone, they might expect a gunfight to break out at any moment.
It may be more relevant than at Pearl Harbor.
It’s almost hard to comprehend the utter hell on Earth that erupted on an otherwise calm Sunday morning 84 years ago. Even today, taking a boat from the main launch to the USS Arizona Memorial almost seems like taking a leisurely lunch at a retreat.
It almost doesn’t seem real until you see the remnants of a rusted ship protruding from the water. It’s a stark reminder of what happened during one of the single-most consequential moments of the 20th century.
Every year, events in history fade slightly more into the annals of yesterday. But traveling provides an opportunity to not only stand where the tides of history turned, but also to ponder those who helped make that turn and gave their lives in support of that mission.
Borrowing the words that President Franklin D. Roosevelt relayed to the nation the day after the Pearl Harbor attack, “It is our obligation to our dead — it is our sacred obligation to their children and our children — that we must never forget what we have learned.”
Borrowing the words of Ronald Reagan from a December 2, 1986, proclamation for National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, “We have not forgotten, nor will we. We live in a world made more free, more just, and more peaceful by those who will answer roll call no more, those who will report for muster never again. We do remember Pearl Harbor.”
