The Heart of Honolulu
When people talk about what makes Hawaii special, they often speak of the climate, the ocean, the beaches.
But to borrow a line from James Carville and the first election of President Bill Clinton, “it’s the people, stupid.”
A visit to the on the day before Memorial Day is proof of that.
It’s hard to imagine another city in America where so many would do so much for our nation’s fallen warriors. To see tens of thousands of lei draped on the stones, testament to the labors and love of hundreds, if not thousands of people, touches a deep cord.
The fallen are not forgotten.
A city remembers, a city with a heart. It’s a remarkable sight. A lesson on what makes Honolulu such a unique community.
On this Memorial Day, at Civil Beat we remember.
Perhaps these words of President Barack Obama, from his first as president, best capture the feeling in the fields of Punchbowl.
If the fallen could speak to us, what would they say? Would they console us? Perhaps they might say that while they could not know they鈥檇 be called upon to storm a beach through a hail of gunfire, they were willing to give up everything for the defense of our freedom; that while they could not know they鈥檇 be called upon to jump into the mountains of Afghanistan and seek an elusive enemy, they were willing to sacrifice all for their country; that while they couldn鈥檛 possibly know they would be called to leave this world for another, they were willing to take that chance to save the lives of their brothers and sisters in arms.
What is this thing鈥搕his sense of duty? What tugs at a person until he or she says, 鈥淪end me鈥? Why, in an age when so many have acted only in pursuit of the narrowest self interest, have the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines of this generation volunteered all that they have on behalf of others? Why have they been willing to bear the heaviest burden?
Whatever it is, they felt some tug; they answered a call; they said, 鈥淚鈥檒l go.鈥 That is why they are the best of America, and that is what separates them from those who鈥檝e not served in uniform: Their extraordinary willingness to risk their lives for people they never met.
In the case of Honolulu, what strikes me as extraordinary is the willingness of its people to give love to many they never met, to honor them as they would 鈥 and do 鈥 honor their own.
That is what makes this a city with a heart.
