Honoring history, sacrifice

Tuesday, June 3, 2008 | 2:04 a.m.

President Bush has asked administration officials to examine the prospect of designating a new national monument to honor World War II sites of the Pacific Ocean region.

Pearl Harbor’s USS Arizona Memorial recognizes the battleship crew that fell victim to Japan’s Dec. 7, 1941, attack. But “other objects of historic and scientific interest in the area of Pearl Harbor and other sites in the Pacific remain outside this memorial,” Bush wrote in his May 29 memo to Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne.

Bush’s memo mentions Ford Island, in Pearl Harbor, where U.S. Navy battleships were moored during the 1941 attack. Vintage aircraft hangars still stand on the island, as does the radio tower from which news of the attack was first transmitted.

Bush’s memo does not name any other sites but says other “objects of historical and scientific interest may tell the broader story of the war, the sacrifices made by America and its allies, and the heroism and determination that laid the groundwork for victory” in the Pacific and the war.

The president has instructed Kempthorne and Gates to advise him on possible sites to be included.

Ford Island already holds distinction as a national historic landmark, and the USS Arizona Memorial is managed by the National Park Service. But designation as part of one large national monument offers additional, and virtually permanent, protections.

Some of the areas that might be considered are still used for military operations, but giving them monument status “should not limit” the military’s work, Bush said.

Like the Grand Canyon, named a national monument in 1932, and the Statue of Liberty, designated in 1924, the Pacific sites where brave Americans gave their all during World War II are part of our nation’s history and identity. These special places should be afforded the protections and honor that being a national monument can bring them.