Looking for a Rufous

It was a humbling experience, standing there looking out over Pearl Harbor where it all happened on December 7, 1941, where over 2400 American servicemen died and 1,178 were wounded. Here’s the Wikipedia link if you’re interested:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Pearl_Harbor

A bit of back-story on why I was there on December 7, 1996.

I had flown to Honolulu the day before with friends, actually teammates, who were all part of Team in Training that raised money for the Leukemia Society (now called Leukemia & Lymphoma Society). We all raised money and trained for weeks and weeks to run the marathon in Honolulu. For me, because I’m a runner and because my mom died of Leukemia when I was 19, it was the right thing to do. I was honoring her memory. After we checked into our hotel in Waikiki on December 6, Quentin, the runner sharing a hotel room with me and I talked it over and decided to spend our free day before the marathon at Pearl Harbor.

Every year Honolulu honors the Pearl Harbor casualties with a dockside memorial service in front of the museum. If you go there, you should go to the museum and take the tour out to the Arizona site. Along the dockside were tripods set up with a wreath and the picture and name of the honoree. There was an informal service. I don’t remember for sure, but I think there were about 20 people being honored. Then we took the launch out to the site of the U.S.S. Arizona (BB-39). Right next to the partially submerged battleship was a memorial with all the names of the Arizona servicemen who died inscribed on a stone monument. Regardless of how you feel about war and the results of war, it’s hard not to be moved by visiting Pearl Harbor.

Although running the Honolulu marathon the next day was a bit anticlimactic after the Pearl Harbor tour, everyone on the Team in Training team finished the marathon and had a great time celebrating afterwards.