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COURTESY U.S. MARINE CORPS / 2016
Ray Chavez, the oldest living Pearl Harbor survivor, last year rang the “Freedom Bell” at the USS Bowfin Submarine Museum & Park on Pearl Harbor. Today, the public has the opportunity to ring the bell in honor of all military service members — including the Navy reservists who were aboard the USS Ward during the Pearl Harbor attack.
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Underwater video footage released on Tuesday offers a glimpse of the sunken USS Ward in its final resting place in the Philippines. The vessel, as retired Rear Adm. Sam Cox has put it, “fired the first shot of the battle (and) the first shot of World War II in the Pacific.” At 6:45 a.m. Dec. 7, 1941, in Pearl Harbor, the four-stack destroyer torpedoed a suspect submarine — roughly an hour before Japanese planes arrived. The Ward was sunk exactly three years later, Dec. 7, 1944, after being attacked by kamikazes.
Among events marking today’s 76th anniversary is an opportunity for the public to ring the “Freedom Bell” in honor of all military service members — including the Navy reservists who were aboard the Ward during the Pearl Harbor attack (www.pearlharborevents.com).
A closer look at guns and marijuana
Are guns and medical marijuana a dangerous combination? There’s no clear answer. So it was prudent for the Honolulu Police Department to take a step back from its plans to require legal medical marijuana patients to surrender their firearms, ammunition and permits — pending development of a policy that’s “legally sound and serves our community,” as Honolulu’s new police chief, Susan Ballard, described it.
It’s an issue that has sown some confusion in states with legal medical cannabis, as federal law prohibits anyone who uses marijuana, medicinally or not, from owning firearms. A careful approach is best.