I made my obligatory trip to the Pearl Harbor Arizona Memorial Saturday, just four days after the 69th anniversary of that fateful day. The survivors of the Arizona met in Honolulu to discuss the disbanding of their organization this week; there are so few survivors left, as most would be about 89–90 years of age. In the end, they decided to continue with the organization for another year. I saw a few of them leaving the Hilton, and I contemplated the great loss for all of us as these people with oral history continue to pass away. They were a generation that gave everything without asking anything in return, and we can learn a lot from them. The memorial is the memorial that all others wish to be and mirror. Breaching the sunken hulk of our beloved USS Arizona is a white structure that dips in the center and rises on each end. There is no better introductory film than that which is shown to all visitors to the memorial. It was produced many years ago, and I was pleased to see they had not changed the film one bit. It is educational, moving and always brings tears to my eyes as the film closes and the auditorium lights rise. Even rambunctious children are solemned by the tone, narration, images and music before they enter the shuttle to the Arizona. The United States Navy runs the shuttle across Pearl to battleship row, where our ships anchored on a sleepy and peaceful Sunday 69 years ago when the Japanese led their surprise attack. One can imagine the chaos that day as you cross the harbor to the memorial. You can also see the other moorings from battleships and areas of interest in the harbor. The most moving image, for me, is the listing of survivors who lived long after Dec. 7, 1941, but have decided to have themselves interred with shipmates buried in sealed compartments of the Arizona wreck. As I said, there is no better place to educate ourselves about what happened than the Arizona Memorial. Normandy’s new visitors’ center has some similarities, and it is obvious they took a page from the fine job done at Pearl Harbor. — Fran Gallagher, publisher and CEO