How would you memorialize the lost?

Not many people have had the balls to attack the USA in the USA. So, when it happens, it cuts deep. My generation saw the attacks on September 11, 2001 and before that Americans endured December 7, 1941, a date which will live in infamy. Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day passed recently and I had some time to reflect on all this. The coping strategies and memorials vastly differ from one generation to the next.

I never got the chance to see the Twin Towers in person before they went down. However, I did pay a visit to the gut wrenching hole in Manhattan we called Ground Zero. I had to. It was so unsettling it made me want to vomit a little and my sister just wanted to leave. We couldn't even look at it. But I HAD to visit. That was in 2010.

I also had the chance to visit the Pentagon post 9/11 on an inside tour with a college class. It was a once in a life time opportunity. I got inside the Pentagon! One of the most guarded buildings in America! Of course the site where it took damage from the attack was a stop on my tour. That was in 2008.

This year while visiting a friend on Maui I knew I had to make the extra effort to get to Oahu and see Pearl Harbor. It was the Ground Zero for a generation of Americans before me. The straw on this camel's back that came down so hard that we all came together for some serious ass-kicking. And good lord did we ever. After those bombs we dropped on Japan, I can see why it took so long for anyone else to launch a similarly large attack on US soil. It would be a death sentence in the worst kind of way. That visit was in 2013.

Clearly, for years and years sites like this will receive visitors. So how do we greet them? What sort of space do we provide for reflection?

Here is a shot I took at Pearl Harbor:

USS Arizona Memorial

They chose to leave the USS Arizona exactly where it sank and build a viewing platform above it. It features a wall of names of those lost to the water just below. Only one boat full of people can stay at a time, so it never gets too crowded. It is a quaint yet powerful memorial.

On the other hand, Ground Zero has transformed into the Freedom Tower, aka One World Trade Center. The idea was to build the tallest building in the world, but ultimately we settled for the tallest in the western hemisphere. It is an enormity piercing out of even New York City's lofty skyline. Have a look here: http://onewtc.com/

One generation went small, the next went big as can be. Granted, we have to keep in mind each is also a product of its surroundings. Pearl Harbor is still a working military base, after all. And New York City is known for its architecture with altitude. But perhaps these monuments are just as much a reflection of the survivors as much as the victims.

It has taken me a long time to write this and I am still not even sure what I am trying to say. Except that these are two very different reactions to what seem to me to be two very similar events. One is not right, one is not wrong. Just different.