April 5, 2019
Hi, Everybody.
We just traveled to
Hawaii, and while there we took a tour of Pearl Harbor. We had a wonderful
guide, who had retired from the Navy and took great pride in all things military
and all things Hawaiian. He asked us if we had plans to visit the Punchbowl
Cemetery, and when we said we didn’t he said we should. A bit later he asked
the question again, and so we told him we would. Then he brought it up a third
time, and told us we absolutely had to see it.
So we went.
Punchbowl is also
known as the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, and it is breathtakingly
beautiful. It's in an extinct volcanic crater and is remarkably symmetric,
lush, and green. It has a statue at its head: a woman with one palm open and the
other holding an olive branch. There is a fountain at her feet, murals behind
her depicting military maps, and sweeping away from her are two lines of
pavilions. These pavilions are inscribed with the names of every missing
soldier from World War 1, World War 2, Korea and Viet Nam.
Here is what we
found:
For you younger
cousins who may not know, Robert E. Janson was the older brother of Rheda,
Richard, Raymond and Russell. His plane went down in the waters off the
Aleutian Islands.
It was an incredible thing, to see his name etched in stone.
Happy spring,
everybody!!
Diana