Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Aloha to Fort Shafter and Palm Circle



Fort Shafter is the oldest military installation on Oahu.  It sits atop a ridge line, overlooking Honolulu and Pearl Harbor.


The highlight is Palm Circle with its parade ground and plantation houses.


The houses are assigned to the general officers, including the Australian liaison to Pacific Command.


The palm trees line the circular road around the parade field ...


... perfect location for retirement ceremonies, as featured in an episode of H50 (at this link).


Palm Circle was also featured in the movie PEARL HARBOR with Ben Affleck and Kate Beckinsale.  Do you have a favorite "war" movie - any decade?   One randomly selected commenter from this week's blogs wins a book choice from my convention stash.  This giveaway is open to all readers.  Comments are open through Saturday, May 11, 10 pm in Hawaii.  I'll post the winner on Sunday, May 12, at The Reading Reviewer (at this link).

Mahalo,

Kim in Hawaii   

12 comments:

  1. All the war movies make me cry, especially Pearl Harbor!! But I recently watched the remake of Red Dawn and I thought it was really good!

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  2. I do like Pearl Harbour... :) It's my favorite!

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  3. Saving Private Ryan and the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers. I've always really liked WW2 centered movies...

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  4. Pear Harbor was a great movie. My husband enjoys watching war movies so I've seen a lot of them. The Longest Day is one of our favorites.

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  5. I like "The Hurt Locker" and "The Last of the Mohicans."

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  6. Shining Through with Michael Douglas and Melanie Griffith - WWII & spies - excellent. Can't count the number of times I've watched it and still cry!

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  7. My husband's father was stationed there. Beautiful.

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  8. Hi Kim!

    My favorite war movie is The Patriot which starred Mel Gibson.

    It was included the Battle of Cowpens, South where Carolina Brigadier General Daniel Morgan and a mixed Patriot force rout British Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton and a group of Redcoats and Loyalists at the Battle of Cowpens on this day in 1781.

    My husband and I made a point to stop at Cowpens when we were going to see my son and his family who live in South Carolina even before we saw he movie because the Commander in chief of the Southern Army, Major General Nathaniel Greene who was born in Rhode Island where we live. He had decided to divide Patriot forces in the Carolinas in order to force the larger British contingent under General Charles Cornwallis to fight them on multiple fronts—and because smaller groups of men were easier for the beleaguered Patriots to feed.
    because smaller groups of men were easier for the beleaguered Patriots to feed. Daniel Morgan took 300 Continental riflemen and 740 militiamen with the intention of attacking the British backcountry fort, Ninety-Six.

    In response Cornwallis dispatched Tarleton with 1,100 Redcoats and Loyalists to catch Morgan. The British mistook the repositioning of the Americans as a rout and ran into an unexpected volley of concentrated rifle fire coupled with a cavalry charge and followed by the return of the militia. Tarleton escaped, but Morgan's troops decimated his army.

    One of the reasons I like the movie so much is because many people don't realize that South Carolina played an important part in the Revolutionary War.

    One of the reasons I like the movie so much is that it the Revolutionary War was a very bitter war, a total war, and that is something that isn't discussed in the normal High School history class. In fact the Loyalists (colonists who did not want to join the fight for independence from Britain) meant that the War of Independence was a conflict of complex loyalties. Hopefully in the classrooms today the complexity of the Revolution is studied in the more complete and objective way so students can understand how our country came to be what it is today and relate what happened here to better understand what is currently happening in other countries today.

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  9. So many good films but The Longest Day.

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  10. I liked Pearl Harbor. Thanks for the tour of Fort Shafter. The houses look nice with all of the big windows they have.

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  11. Thanks for the pictures of Fort Shafter.

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