I'm going to admit right up front that I am writing this blog post from my lanai (patio) of my room at my hotel on Kauai and watching and listening to the waves splash ashore under the moonlight. I am a few days behind on my posts for the conference which is now concluded as we were busy morning to night and any other time was spent visiting and exchanging ideas with other participants. So I have given myself a little break with my own personal sidetrip to the island in the Hawaiian chain that I always wanted to visit. It is just for a few days and has helped me clear my brain a little. My summer will take me almost 50,000 miles by the time I am done and this is a needed break. Today I played 36 holes of golf on the north shore at some absolutely spectacular courses that were challenging as well as just gorgeous with views of the ocean - the Prince course and Makai Courses at Princeville. And I am pretty proud that I scored so well with an 85 and 86. Princeville has over 10 miles of cart path and stretches across 5200 acres. I was then able to drive to the furthest point west one can drive in the US! But tomorrow I will get back to some work as there are war memorials on Kauai!! LOL
After our great day visiting Pearl Harbor, the conference then provided us with the chance to listen to some special voices: survivors of Pearl Harbor, both military and civilians as well as additional voices! They truly were unique and touching. The military veterans were first and they simply wowed us all. There was an 87 year old veteran who served as a pharmacists mate in the navy; on December 7 and the next few days, he helped treat hundreds of wounded and pulled bodies and remains from ships such as the West Virginia. He went on to serve at Guadalcanal and throughout the war and eventually earned a captaincy. Another veteran had been stationed on the USS Pennsylvania and was seriously wounded during the attack and later was evacuated back to the mainland and transferred to the Atlantic. Finally, we were all greatly moved by the story of a Japanese-American who was serving in the University of Hawaii ROTC program on December 7 and was immediately put into service helping to guard the island, until the military decided a few days later that these Japanese-American citizens were somehow "threats" to the nation and disbanded their unit and refused to allow them to serve. His voice broke as he explained that the moment he had his weapon removed and was told his country did not want his assistance was the worst and most painful moment of his life. Later he would be part of the formation of the 442 Regimental Combat Team comprised of Japanese-Americans and then he was chosen for Military Intelligence and was assigned into the Pacific. Later in the week we had the opportunity to meet even more veterans and Pearl Harbor survivors.
We next listened to a panel of civilian survivors of the war. First was a Japanese-American woman who had lived on the property adjancent to the entrance to Pearl Harbor and who witnessed the Japanese planes fly over her home on their way to attack the US Navy. Her family was soon kicked out of their home that was then confiscated by the military; she suffered many hardships and she and her family were detained for a time in a camp on the islands while her father was sent to the mainland. She is a strong proud woman today and urged us to make sure our students learn of the Japanese internment. The next two speakers were Pacific Islanders from the Marianas; these men had lived through Japanese occupation, then US liberation and finally American occupation. They told of being the battleground between two powerful nation-states and the price they paid, and they sadly desribed the nuclear bomb testing that was conducted on their island chain and made such places as the Bikini atoll unlivable today. These were voices rarely heard in the US and I believe we were all fascinated and enlightened. Our final civilian speaker had been born in Hawaii but returned with his family to Japan prior to the war, he ended up as a survivor of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima and gave his first-person account of that horrible day. His story was moving and thought-provoking. We were all left to ponder our reactions and thoughts to such a moving and memorable day.
As I am tiring quickly tonight, I will stop here for now. The next post will explain much of the rest of the workshop including some additional site visits we made and my own personal adventure to photograph some little seen memorials of battleship row. I will leave you with another Hawaiian sunset looking out from our dorm (yes a dorm :).
