BURL BURLINGAME / BBURLINGAME@STARBULLETIN.COM The Pacific War Memorial overlooks Kaneohe Bay and the Koolau Mountains, and has become the focal point for memorial commemorations at Marine Corps Base Hawaii. It re-creates the moment an American flag was raised on Iwo Jima.

A monument to sacrifice

WORLD War II brought Americans together as never before, and all the services worked together to fight the war in the Pacific. The key image of this teamwork was the moment the American flag was raised on Iwo Jima, one of the most recognizable images of modern times.

Pacific War Memorial Location Marine Corps Base Hawaii Kaneohe Bay, HI 96863 Quicktime VR(s) - None for this site Website(s) Pacific War Memorial Association www.pacificwarmemorial.org

Inspired by this unity of purpose, as well as a one-time-only recasting of the famous statue created from the Iwo Jima image, the Pacific War Memorial Association was created to honor American interservice teamwork.

The spark plugs of the organization were Sefton and Alice Clark of Kamuela, a Big Island couple who had already organized a monument for Camp Tarawa, where Marines trained for the invasion of Iwo Jima. When the Navy nixed placing the memorial at Pearl Harbor, the Marines of Kaneohe stepped in and created space and landscaping at the base entrance.

The sculpture is a recasting of a statue created for the National Iwo Jima Survivors Association in Newington, Conn., not the Washington, D.C., monument. It was sculpted by Joseph Petrovics and cast by Sculpture House Casting. It is erected on a stone plinth with etchings that credit the services.

The space around the monument was carefully planned as well, including the planting of vegetation and a brick "Walkway of Honor," which consists of etched stones. These bricks, available for etching for $100, are the Association's primary fund-raising apparatus. See www.pacificwarmemorial.org.

The organization's next goal is an archive, library and learning center.

The terror events of Sept. 11, 2001, and the continuing war in Iraq have made the site the primary center for memorial services on base. When 27 Kaneohe Marines were killed in one day in Iraq, money was raised to buy memorial bricks in only a few hours.

At the 60th anniversary of the flag-raising on Iwo Jima last week, American veterans on their way back to the United States gathered together for possibly the last time at the Pacific War Memorial and were proudly saluted by modern Marines stationed at the base.