Do you have a list of fun things you’d like to do or try?  I must get to Paris.  I really want to see Pearl Harbor.  I want to play guitar.  I want to try escargot.  I’ve never written down my list but I have a few items resting in the back of my mind.  I don’t really know why I have the items I do.  Something sparked my interest along the way and became a goal I aimed to achieve.

My conquest.

Pearl Harbor was on my list.   A recent trip to Kaui included a 4.5-hour layover in Honolulu and meant my wish could come true.  My older son also needed to visit a National Monument for a Boy Scout merit badge.  Our plans were coming together; it was meant to be.  Little did I know the excursion was more for me than a scout.  I was determined to help us both.

My Boy Scout

Most tours on the Pearl Harbor website are five hour long and rather pricey.  I called one of the services about a stripped down version to see the USS Arizona, the ship with the memorial built right over it, the icon for Pearl Harbor.  No dice.  People start lining up at 5:30 AM for those tickets and our flight from Kaui didn’t arrive until 9 AM.   We could only visit the museums and admire the memorial from across the water.

By default, I was the tour director when we arrived. I saw a park employee handing out tickets for the USS Arizona.  Maybe they didn’t sell out.  The tickets were FREE!  The only problem, the next available tour was for 1:45 and our flight left at 1:25.  “Thanks, but no thanks.”

I stood in another line to find a tour for a battleship or submarine.   As I talked through the options with a park employee, the USS-Arizona-ticket lady interrupted to tell me someone turned in some 10:45 tickets, “Could you use these?”  “Really!?!”  “What time do we get back?”  “Noon.”  “I think that will work.”

Then I don’t know what came over me.  “THANK YOU SO MUCH!  THIS MAKES ME SO HAPPY!”  I was lit up like the 4^th of July.  I couldn’t believe our luck.  The two park employees lit up too.  Smiles crept across their faces, a little incredulous at a visitor so exuberant over tickets.  My eyes were starting to well up, another surprise to me.

I didn’t know how badly I wanted to see Pearl Harbor.  Am I that patriotic?  I heard people get pretty moved by the experience but I didn’t know I had it in me.  As I thought about it more, I realized how much my dad would have been excited for my family and I to see something so important to him.  The pools rimmed my eyes.  I was POP-triotic.

My Pop.

My dad trained as a navigator of Navy airplanes for WWII.   The war ended before he could fight.  He chose the Navy before the Army could choose him.  His dad did not have a positive experience in the trenches of France in WWI.

For my dad.

Needless to say, we grew up Navy biased.  My dad stayed in the reserves, wearing his uniform once a month to do what for a weekend I don’t know in Southern Idaho and no ocean.  We lived in Boise until I was 14.  In the seventies, Hollywood made a movie called “Midway” about one of the greatest Japanese/American battles at sea.  Any Navy member or family got to see the movie for free at the local theatre.  So, WWII and Pearl Harbor were sort of knitted into my fabric.

After my dad passed away a year ago, I couldn’t get enough of his generation.  It’s like it took all of my life to ARRIVE.   I read the “Greatest Generation” because it helped me to get to know my dad.  I watched “Band of Brothers” on a DVD collection I bought with an Amazon gift card my dad gave me for Christmas.   Why is it you want to know more about something that doesn’t exist any more?

I’m watching history repeat itself with my boys.  They are not so inspired by Pearl Harbor or my passion.   I want to tell them,  “Just you wait until you don’t have any parents.  You are going to want to see the Tour de France for your dad’s sake and Wimbledon for your mom’s.  You will love Pat Benatar and the Carpenters.  And you will love Pearl Harbor because your mom loved it because her dad loved it!”  Of course I won’t get the satisfaction of witnessing it live, but I can make free tickets magically appear for a life-long wish.  I really believe the “reaching from the grave” is a VERY STRONG possibility.  Seriously, what are the chances of tickets suddenly becoming available within minutes of asking?  My former guardian and now angel was at work; I’m sure of it.

My memento.

This fountain of love for Pearl Harbor spouted for a good hour during our visit.  I wanted one of those pennies stamped with the USS Arizona on it.  I didn’t even ask my boys first.  This one was for me.  I wanted to stop at every placard, ship, and torpedo to take a picture; I couldn’t absorb enough.

We ate breakfast, a hot dog. It was the only thing to eat, so American.  We sat at pristine white plastic tables and chairs, all perfectly aligned and at attention, like a Navy guy organized it.  Glenn Miller tunes played in the background.  We HAD to pay cash for our hot dogs as if were 1941 but not the same price, three bucks each.  The nostalgia was overwhelming.  I was so glad for my sunglasses, hiding my drippy love for the place and memories of my dad.

The actual tour was respectful too.  Everything orderly and timed precisely, just like a soldier.  We watched a film about why Japan would do such a horrific thing and then took a five-minute boat ride to the USS Arizona.  A solemn ambience surrounded the memorial.  After all, we were standing above 900+ men resting at the bottom of the sea.

Half-mast flag over USS AZ.

My dad had a full military ceremony at Ft. Logan cemetery in Colorado.  The twenty-one-gun salute and Taps were enough to make you cry and sign up for the service.  The last words of the Pearl Harbor film were:  Remember.  Honor.  Respect.  Luckily I didn’t lose my dad to Pearl Harbor or he wouldn’t be my dad.  But I can still sense his connection and remember, honor and respect his values and his generation and hope to pass it on to my boys.