Dorinda Makanoonalini, a former resident of Pearl City Peninsula, Hawaii, who was six years old at the time, described the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor: "It was Sunday morning and mom had the radio going. The music played softly in the living room as she began to slice some papaya fruit for breakfast. Radio station KGMB had stayed on all night to provide a beacon to guide a squadron of B-17 Flying Fortresses as they flew 2,500 miles across the ocean from California.

Suddenly, we heard the sound of low flying planes, then almost immediately loud explosions, followed by more planes passing directly over our home. The roar of the engines muffled the sound of the incendiary bullets striking the house. Everywhere we looked there was smoke and fire. The odor of burning oil hung over the harbor. All these unbelievable sights and sounds and smells stunned my senses."

I recently visited the Arizona Memorial. Its simple beauty and the absolute silence of the other visitors struck me that day. The structure straddles the remains of the Arizona about mid-ship and you quickly realize how large a battleship is. This is especially obvious when you notice the distant marker buoys at the ship's bow and stern. The ship is quite visible just a few feet below the surface. The water is almost clear, spoiled only by a faint trace of oil still leaking from the Arizona's tanks.

There is a marble wall that takes up one entire end of the memorial. It contains the names of all those entombed below - more than 1,100 of the 1,550 men on board that morning. Many of the surnames are repeated - Allen, Bishop, Gosselin, Taylor and Zimmerman among them. There are in fact 22 sets of brothers and one father-son pair who lie in this unusual military cemetery.

I thought for a moment about the families whose lives were changed forever by what took place that day. What were they feeling as they heard the report of the attack and waited for word of their sons, fathers and husbands? They would all eventually receive telegrams confirming their loss even as department stores prepared for Christmas and children struggled out of warm beds to start another day without them.

An inscription on a monument to the war dead in the National Memorial of the Pacific could be equally applied to those who were left to mourn: " The solemn pride that must be yours - to have laid so costly a sacrifice on the altar of freedom."

Finally, I thought of Dorinda, her memory still vivid; fatherless sons and daughters no longer young; and felt connected to them all. I hope that all those who remember the Arizona will be equally affected and will pause whenever they hear of an untimely death in defense of their freedom.

Gerald H. Osterberg

Osterberg is a board member of the North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center and resident of Garden City.