Arizona Memorial

I am sitting at the Arizona Memorial, which shows how far my scruples have gone. I lived in Hawaii for years, and could almost claim to be a kamaaina. without the least inclination to visit this memorial to war. I look at the line up of people, a new group every forty minutes, and wonder at the numbers and differences in races and genders and ages, and the irony of a Japanese American tour guide and think, Manzanar. Yet, could this be cause for real optimism? Is this just a job for him like the guides at Gettysburg or Agincourt ? Has time healed the wounds so soon? Are events now so remote, so rapidly? Who leads the tours at Buchenwald, and Cherry Ridge? I sit in the midst of tour group twelve, the eleven-forty bunch, and wonder what I will hear. Will it be fair? Will we hear of scrape metal and crude oil as well as military factions, Tojo and the Diet? Will we hear of honest people on both sides that try to avert a tragedy? Will we hear of the millions held in thrall to the follies of a few?