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Elizabeth Campbell

By EMILY NIPPS
Published December 7, 2005

	[Times photo: Mike Pease]
	Remembering Pearl Harbor Sign our guestbook Remembering WWII

ELIZABETH CAMPBELL, 44, Tampa, is a teacher at Tampa Bay Technical High in Tampa.

I probably learned about Pearl Harbor when I was a kid, maybe 9 or 10 years old, from my mom. That was the greatest thing, listening to stories from my mom. She was always talking about growing up during the Depression, then the war. She would talk about when she got on the bus when she was in her early teen years and the bus driver said that the president had declared the war and that was because of Pearl Harbor. And she explained that Pearl Harbor happened in Hawaii. She never said the city in Hawaii or anything like that. Being a kid, all I knew was Hawaii was way over in the ocean somewhere, a bunch of islands.

I remember the (idea of the) war being something horrible. My dad had been in World War II. He died when I was a baby. So I never heard any personal stories from him, just stories from my mom about her being in high school and hearing over the loudspeaker every morning that this guy died and that guy died ... She'd talk about dealing with personal friends dying. They'd hear about it every morning at school. They would go out outside and do little first aid drills with emergency sirens.

I don't really remember hearing about it a lot in school. I never thought of it as that big of a deal growing up. I mean, I thought of World War II as a big deal because my dad was in it and my mom talked about how it hindered him emotionally.

I went to Hawaii twice but I never visited the site (of the Pearl Harbor attacks). That might sound horrible to people, especially people that are older. I just wasn't drawn to it at all. And both times I went, I did go to Oahu. I just thought about going to the beach, going to Diamond Head, going to the North Shore and seeing the surfers. But I never thought once that I wanted to go see Pearl Harbor.

I know more about Vietnam at my age. I remember having the bracelets we used to wear with the names of the POWs and MIAs on them. I remember that war and all of us wishing that it would end and when are they going to come home. And the movies that were going on ... I remember Jane Fonda and all of that. That's more real to me.

[Last modified December 6, 2005, 11:57:02]