The memorial is important and significant for all the reasons mentioned above, it serves as a reminder of the sacrifice of all the souls that now rest within her hull, the treachery of a nation that claimed to be an ally, and the resolve of the American people in rebounding from tragedy, coming together and grasping victory from the jaws of impending failure.
To me however it has an added significance. I visited the memorial for the first time in 1988 with my father. It had been one of the most memorable trips we’d taken and the experience was indelibly etched into my consciousness. My father left us when in 1996. In the sumer of 2005 I bought tickets to Honolulu to visit one of my best friends stationed at Scofield barracks (another of the places hit that day in 1941)... I was to leave on July 15th. On July 10th I got a visit from an aunt I hadn’t seen in 15 years… she came to tell me my father had died on June 10th… exactly a month before. 5 Days later I found myself in Honolulu and after dropping my luggage off at the hotel rented a car and drove to Pearl Harbor.
I said goodbye to my father for the last time while aboard the memorial. I retraced our visit exactly and recreated the pictures we took leaving space where he would have stood. I found myself standing on the edge of the memorial looking down on the wreck when a little girl looked up at me and asked why I was crying (I was wearing rather large sunglasses at the time). I’ll always associate that place with one of the happiest and most bittersweet memories I have of my father.