I just got back from a wonderful vacation to Hawaii. We finally saved enough to go, and considering the fact that American Airlines may go out of business, I wanted to use my American Airlines points before that happened.
If you haven't gone, go. Oahu is a must see.
I spent an entire day at Pearl Harbor. It is very moving to stand on the bow of the Missouri and gaze across the harbour at the corpse of the Arizona and all the men entombed. I wondered what is was like, back in 1941 to see 353 planes (in two waves) come at you across the mountains. Dropping bombs, strafing with 40 mm and skimming torpedos. All on a Sunday morning after a night of hard partying Sat night.
Watching the sun stretch across the Pacific, I was struck by the fact that most people don't realize that a large driver for WWII was resource conflict between Japan and the USA. Japan didn't have a choice (from their perspective) when Roosevelt cut off oil supplies. They wanted to be a colonial power (like France, Great Britain, the USA, etc) and were miffed when the US said no.
No to their occupation of China.
No to their expansion.
Reading the history books (as it usually is) it was obvious that Japan was going to do something. But it is amazing to see the remains of the destruction from the last world war. WWII was the most recent war that was fought over resource exploitation. But it certainly won't be the last.
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