Category: Family

Approaching the USS Arizona by boat

USS Arizona: The Beginnings of World War II

Our second day in Hawaii was mostly spent satisfying the historical interests of my father and brother with a trip to Pearl Harbor. There, visitors can see two very important ships, the first of which is the sunken remains of the battleship USS Arizona.

Inside the memorial hall

The Arizona Memorial is a very quiet, solemn place. After an introductory movie in the land-side museum, visitors are taken out by boat to the memorial itself. While most of the above water superstructure has been removed, the base of the giant gun turrent still stands as silent witness.

Around the memorial, there are pools of oil, leaking slowly from the wreckage at a rate of 2 quarts per day even 66 years later. To the memoral staff and locals, the oil is often referred to as the tears of the ship, weeping for the 1,177 crew members lost on December 7th, 1941.

The Arizona’s forward gun turret base

USS Missouri: The End of the War

The forward guns on the battleship USS Missouri

On the other side of Pearl Harbor, the ship where the japanese surrender ceremony took place on September 2nd, 1945, signaling the end of the second world war, lies docked.

Inside the massive battleship

The battleship USS Missouri has a long and rich history, having served in World War II, the Korean War and the Gulf War. We were able to take a complete, guided tour throughout the ship, thanks to my younger brother. The tour went from the control deck all the way down to the engine room, and introduced us up close and personal to 60 years of naval history.

Main gun targeting computers

In the course of a few hours, we went from the tragedy that started one of the most famous wars in history, to the joys of the end of the very same conflict. It was a long and exhausting day, but ultimately a rewarding one for all of us.

PHOTO GALLERY » HAWAII: DAY TWO

Roadside view near Diamond Head Beach

Right now, the Meister family lies scattered across the world thanks to our jobs. My younger brother, an Army company commander, lives in South Korea, while my younger sister, an Air Force Captain, resides in Texas. My dad lives here in northeast Ohio, while my mother routinely travels back and forth between all the houses to take care of things while the other two are off on tours of duty. We haven’t been together in the same room as a family since the early summer of 2001, so it was decided earlier this year to get everyone together in one part of the globe for the first time in six years.

Our family vacation started early on a Thursday morning a few weeks ago. My dad and I left from Cleveland, Ohio to meet up with the rest of the family in Honolulu, Hawaii for a week-long vacation. The plane trip consisted of two flights lasting four hours from Cleveland to Phoenix, Arizona, and then another seven hours from Phoenix to Honolulu. We arrived in Hawaii around Hawaii around 2pm local time thanks to a full six hour time difference from Cleveland, where it was already 8pm.

My brother was already at the airport to greet us, having arrived from South Korea a few hours earlier. We still had a couple of hours before my sister and mother arrived, so we took a short trip up to the roadside cliffs looking out over the beaches near the Diamond Head crater. The wind was pleasant, while the temperature was warm, but not overbearingly so.

Eventually, we headed back to the airport, just as it was finally starting to sink in that, yes, we really were in Hawaii. Everywhere you looked, people were in shorts, walking down streets filled with palm trees and tropical flowers. I was especially surprised at how even the most ordinary parts of town seemed to be filled with color from what I considered exotic plants. Yet, I still had to keep in mind that for the citizens of Honolulu, this was simply another average day at “home”.

Beach view from the hotel

Our first day in Hawaii ended relatively early, with most of our time spent walking up and down the world-famous Waikiki beach. Our hotel, despite being a few blocks away away from the beach, still offered a great view of the ocean.

All in all, it was a pretty good start for the week.

PHOTO GALLERY » HAWAII: DAY ONE