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One of the things we did in Hawaii was go to Pearl Harbor. This was not at all what I expected.
Over and over at the Arizona memorial the tour guides stressed that we were at a burial gorund, and that we were to see it that way, and to behave that way. The humanity of the dead was a central concern. The geopolitical explanation of events was as even-handed and objective as I think humanly possible -- which is to say it was much more complete than I would have expected. They made us watch a movie about the attack, and it began with an explanation of the Japanese need for resources and therefore for control of Asia, and the plan of a minority within the army and government (called "extremists" in the movie) to launch the attack. There wasn't much mention of Japanese behavior in China and elsewhere, but there were a couple of (not graphic) clips that implied some of it. Then they talked about the heroism of people saving other people, and they talked about the relationships among the dead and between the dead and the survivors, and ended with a clip of a Japanese government representative taking part in the annual? remembrance ceremony, picking a name and a flower from a basket. The memorial itself is an awkward-looking white cement object floating about the Arizona, whose ends flare upwards -- supposedly to symbolize something, I didn't catch what. The movie was all about reconciliation and forging the peace. We were asked to remember 1100 individuals. They took every effort to make them real and concrete in our minds. The war was an abstraction.
At first I just marveled at how this remembrance could go on and not be jingoistic at all. The farfther I get away from the day, though, the more uneasy I am about this last thing: the memorial is utterly utterly utterly neutral on the subject of war. So there's no glorifying battle, but at the same time no "never again." I don't know, maybe that's the only honest approach for a military base to take to a military memorial.
I took pictures of band boys in front of the big guns and I had to listen to them prattle about ordinance, but what actually interested me about the battleship Missouri (which is where the band played) was the immensity of the turrets, and the vast social organization required to operate one. Ninety-some people were employed in shooting one shot. What I wonder about is what it was like to work inside that thing, during battles and between too.
Over and over at the Arizona memorial the tour guides stressed that we were at a burial gorund, and that we were to see it that way, and to behave that way. The humanity of the dead was a central concern. The geopolitical explanation of events was as even-handed and objective as I think humanly possible -- which is to say it was much more complete than I would have expected. They made us watch a movie about the attack, and it began with an explanation of the Japanese need for resources and therefore for control of Asia, and the plan of a minority within the army and government (called "extremists" in the movie) to launch the attack. There wasn't much mention of Japanese behavior in China and elsewhere, but there were a couple of (not graphic) clips that implied some of it. Then they talked about the heroism of people saving other people, and they talked about the relationships among the dead and between the dead and the survivors, and ended with a clip of a Japanese government representative taking part in the annual? remembrance ceremony, picking a name and a flower from a basket. The memorial itself is an awkward-looking white cement object floating about the Arizona, whose ends flare upwards -- supposedly to symbolize something, I didn't catch what. The movie was all about reconciliation and forging the peace. We were asked to remember 1100 individuals. They took every effort to make them real and concrete in our minds. The war was an abstraction.
At first I just marveled at how this remembrance could go on and not be jingoistic at all. The farfther I get away from the day, though, the more uneasy I am about this last thing: the memorial is utterly utterly utterly neutral on the subject of war. So there's no glorifying battle, but at the same time no "never again." I don't know, maybe that's the only honest approach for a military base to take to a military memorial.
I took pictures of band boys in front of the big guns and I had to listen to them prattle about ordinance, but what actually interested me about the battleship Missouri (which is where the band played) was the immensity of the turrets, and the vast social organization required to operate one. Ninety-some people were employed in shooting one shot. What I wonder about is what it was like to work inside that thing, during battles and between too.