The September 11th attack
Arizona Memorial experience has new meaning
By Dan Nakaso
Advertiser Staff Writer
There was a moment yesterday, inside the darkened theater of the USS Arizona Memorial visitors center, when Ryan Kleiboeker suddenly got a new perspective on last week's terrorist attack.
Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser
As he absorbed the numbers of soldiers and sailors killed during the Japanese attack on Hawai'i, Kleiboeker thought about the thousands more who died at the hands of terrorists last week in New York and Washington, D.C.
Larry and Fran Hunter of Illinois were among the estimated 1,500 visitors at the Arizona Memorial's reopening.
"Pearl Harbor was such a huge event. Everybody knows what happened," said Kleiboeker, an accountant from Springfield, Mo. "To think that two or three times as many people were killed because of terrorists gives you the magnitude of what happened last week."
Five days after the terrorist attacks, the USS Arizona Memorial reopened yesterday to a sparse crowd greeted by tighter security. But some of those who came to honor the dead from 60 years ago left with a deeper perspective of what happened last week.
"Visiting here certainly has more meaning after what happened in New York," said David Goza, who works for a power plant company in Houston. "Pearl Harbor's biggest lesson was that the United States always has to be prepared. Maybe that's the lesson we had to learn over again last week."
Long before the terrorist attacks, California Highway Patrol officer Josh Sarinas made his first of three trips to the Arizona Memorial. Yesterday, he learned yet another lesson.
"It always provides a good point of reflection," Sarinas said. "You get a better appreciation of what the armed forces are doing for the country, especially at this point in time."
The mood at the memorial was considerably different for Sarinas yesterday.
Black bands hung across the badges worn by National Park Service rangers. Navy sailors and rangers politely asked memorial visitors to turn around and leave everything in their cars, except cameras. Wallets, purses, backpacks, even diaper bags, were suddenly no longer allowed.
"This is a national memorial, a place for people to reflect on the past," said ranger Daniel Fagergren. "Having to crack down like this is unfortunate. This is America, after all. It's kind of sad."
The memorial can handle 4,500 visitors per day. After the movie "Pearl Harbor" premiered, as many as 5,000 people poured onto the memorial this summer.
But yesterday, only an estimated 1,500 people came, part of the fallout from the nation's disrupted air travel. There was no waiting, and shuttle boats to the memorial went out half empty.
Despite the inconvenience of taking bags back to their cars, visitors offered little grumbling. Most said they didn't care that signs in the parking lot warned people not to leave valuables in their cars.
They didn't mind, they said, because they know the Arizona Memorial would be a symbolic target for terrorists. The heightened security will remain indefinitely.
However, nothing can change the memorial's ability to affect people, said chief ranger Dan Hand.
"I believe that the Arizona Memorial, this tomb, this monument to the dead, is able to communicate to the public something powerful," Hand said. "It can bolster the human spirit. I believe people come away with a renewed sense of what's important."
Reach Dan Nakaso at dnakaso@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8085.
