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THE WEIRS TIMES, Thursday, October 28, 2010 HIGH ABOVE HONOLULU
by Roger Amsden News Correspondent
HONOLULU, HAWAII - I had never heard of the Punchbowl Memorial until I visited Hawaii in September. But as I visited The National Memo-
rial Cemetery of the Pacific I realized that I was seeing one of the most beautiful military cemeteries in the world, one of epic majesty in a dra- matic setting that itself produces a sense of awe. Set in the crater of ancient vol-
A 30-foot high figure of Lady Columbia provides an impressive centerpiece for the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu.
ROGER AMSDEN PHOTO
cano high above Honolulu, it offers a breathtaking view of the city and of Diamondhead, with a giant lawn which stretches across the crater and stately trees lining the plush green avenues, as if standing at re- spectful attention over the gravesites of some 33,000 American soldiers who had fallen in combat in the Pacific. The main memorial complex cen-
ters on a 30-foot high figure of Lady Columbia, a symbol of all grieving mothers, which is inscribed at its
base with the famous words with which Abraham Lincoln concluded his 1864 letter to Lydia Bixby of Massachusetts, a widow who lost five sons during the Civil War ``the Solemn Pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.’’ The wings of the memorial build-
ing flanking the central memorial display annotated maps of major American battles in the Pacific with a chapel directly behind the Lady Columbia figure. Walking down the wide steps below the central memo- rial you find what first appears to be a lawn but is actually a field of ground-level grave markers known as the Courts of the Missing, their entire surface filled with the names of thousands of soldiers whose bod- ies were never recovered. The National Memorial Cemetery
of the Pacific and the Honolulu Memorial cover about 116 acres in Puowaina Crater. Although there are various translations of the Punch- bowl’s Ha-
See PUNCHBOWL on 38
PUNCHBOWL MEMORIAL AN AMAZING SITE
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