We weren’t going to spend an entire week in Oahu and not visit Pearl Harbor and the USS Arizona Memorial. It turned out to be an even more incredible experience than we thought. While the all different parts of the Memorial (the museum, the info movie, the names etched in the wall, etc) were extraordinarily touching, there was one single thing about the entire event sticks out in my mind.

After riding the boat out to the Memorial in the middle of the harbor, we were able to walk around, read the plaques, take pictures, and soak it all in. I could see the Arizona just a few feet below the water, and my mind was brought back to the huge, ship-sinking explosion that we had just seen in the informational film. In the middle of all this emotion, I saw a drop of oil float the top of the water. I can’t even explain the strange feeling this produced. Every minute or so another drop would rise to the top. To think that after 65 years of sitting there under the water the ship is still slowly leaking oil! It is one of those things that, as much as you describe it to someone, you have to actually see it to really experience the true emotion.