Nearing Midway

After waiting in a hotel on O'ahu for my flight to Midway, I realized that oh so soon I was to board small airplane and land on my new home away from home. The day is a post-card day in Hawai'i. The sky-blue horizon is only interrupted by flowing palms and passing clouds. I read the newspaper today and found that some notaries may be on my flight to Midway. In commemoration of the 65th anniversary of the Battle of Midway many people were on the island. This would perhaps explain why I could not catch an earlier flight to Midway. This started me thinking, who will be on the flight with me? Fellow volunteers, researchers, or perhaps visiting notables. Well, as I later found out: two fellow volunteers. As it was, we three volunteers missed the festivities on Midway. Over a thousand people gathered to honor and commemorate those who fought. Although there were losses on both the American and Japanese sides, the battle of Midway proved to be the turning point in the war in the Pacific. The battle lasted three days, from the fourth to the sixth, and although I was not there on the fourth, to be there on the fifth still connected me to those events 65 years ago. It is even possible that in five years, at the 70th anniversary, I might be near Midway to see the occasion. If not, at the very least, I will no longer thing so absently of June the Fourth.