Patriotism, at Pearl Harbour

I’ve been to the ghost village of Verdun, where the entire place was decimated by shells during WW1. Huge craters where once a local shop, a butcher, a baker, stood. Douaumont Ossuary, a memorial containing the remains of 100,000 soldiers who perished in the Battle of Verdun, stood as a painful reminder to all who visit that a ridiculous amount of life was taken on the land they walk. It was a tragically beautiful place with a peaceful homage to those who’ve fallen, but whatever I felt while at Verdun, there was a different type of patriotism to be found at Pearl Harbour.

Pearl Harbour was a place I knew I would visit at some point in my life but I never imagined I would be visiting it at 21 and I appreciate how fortunate I am to have visited. Most of us are aware of what happened at Pearl Harbour, it was the precursor to the United States joining WW2 and it resulted in the death of 2,403 American soldiers.

In the hours following the attack, and when the hum of fighter planes went silent, people not only saw death and destruction but an America that had lost a part of its soul, damaged, and hurting, yet a sheer determination to not be beaten.

There is a great stubbornness ingrained in America in that they refuse to ever be beaten when it comes to their country. It was this event that saw thousands of young men and women join the arm forces to defend their country and more importantly, defend their ideals in the pursuit of happiness and liberty for all.

It is this belief that contextualises memorial sites such as Pearl Harbour. The name of every man, woman, and child, both militarily by: branch, rank, and division, and civilian by name and location are engraved on a plaque surrounding the flag of the United States of America as a timeless reminder that at the centre of each of them lied their shared devotion to their country.

What historical sites like Pearl Harbour teach us is that patriotism isn’t about flying a flag or tweeting that your country is number one in the world. It is about remembering and recognising the ultimate sacrifice that your fellow country men and woman have made in the belief that what they were fighting for, was worth dying for.

Pearl Harbour on the island of Oahu today is spectacularly beautiful. It is hard to imagine that in the place of peace and calm that something so terrible occurred.

The flags fly high and the commemorative plaques glint in the sunlight, not to show that the United States is the best country in the world, but to show that it was vulnerable, it was hurt badly, and from that it rose above adversity due to those who gave the ultimate sacrifice – their own life. You can find more information on the site here and looking for other things to do in Hawaii, check out my tag here