Friday, December 7, 2012

Remembering


Seven years ago, my family and I took our first trip to Hawaii.  It had been my desire, since learning more about my uncle, to visit his grave in the Punchbowl Cemetery on the island of Oahu.


As we walked along row after row of graves, searching for the one belonging to Pete, we passed many, many markers like this one.



Some of these markers even rested on ground that held the remains of several “unknowns,” buried together.


Later on during our stay in Honolulu-as we were visiting  the USS Arizona Memorial, and saw the columns of names of the men lost that day-I couldn't help thinking that some of those names matched some of those “unknowns” we ‘d seen at Punchbowl.


For their sake, and the sake of their loved ones who never had an actual place to say their goodbyes, I’ll remember Pearl Harbor.

6 comments:

  1. oh Valerie! morning! thank you for the nice piece of cake yesterday. it was delicious (well, looking anyway) hahaha.

    thank you! thank you for remembering pearl harbor. my parents always remembered it and since they are gone for many years, i don't get that remembering notion from them. thank you for doing that for me!

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  2. Oh I never forget it. History is a great lesson we must never forget. Great shots. B

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  3. I've never been to Hawaii but I hope that one day I'll make it there. The pictures themselves are so very powerful I can only imagine what it is like in person.

    You mentioned the Punchbowl and the unknown buried there and just this morning I read an article about a Pearl Harbor Veteran who has been working to identifying some of the remains. Here is the article - http://news.msn.com/us/pearl-harbor-survivor-helps-identify-unknown-dead

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  4. Wow, what a solemn moment that must have been. So sad that there we so many unknowns. Thank you for sharing.

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  5. Thank you all so much for sharing my sentiment here!

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  6. While my father wasn't at Pearl Harbor, seeing these pictures reminds me of the many clipping my grandfather kept about this horrible day. So many gone so fast. So sad.

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