Not the Typical Holiday Weekend Celebration
It's been a few years since Doc Graff and I went looking for Uncle Sam at this location.
We headed south, with our cameras on a special mission, to find him again.
Both of us, equipped our cameras, with wide angle lenses for the photos, we would be taking.
The Mabuni coastline and Peace Prayer Statue are always, great wide-angle subjects.
Normally, neither one of us, would select a hot day in July, to visit this location.
We volunteered, to escort someone, on the only day available, in her busy travel schedule.
Our Guest Came from Rome Italy
She wanted to find someone's name on the Cornerstone of Peace walls.
There are hundreds of thousands of names etched on those stones and, it could take hours.
An online search, led her to my 2016 blog post about a Search for Uncle Sam.
We corresponded and arranged, to meet in Naha on the 4th of July.
A sketchpad, was brought along, to trace the name, she was looking for.
She had never met the man, who died as a Marine PFC during the Battle of Okinawa.
He would have been her grand uncle; the uncle of her father.
Out of the hundreds of black panels, it didn't take us 20 minutes, to find Sam, this time.
Elizabeth Knight got her tracing and some photos, out in the blistering, hot sun.
Doc, fired up the air-conditioner in his new car and, we headed back to Naha.
Last night Liz emailed, Doc and I:
"You two are really fantastic people. Thank you so much for today. I
really don’t have words.
I know my dad will be so grateful, too."
And, I replied: "It was our pleasure."
