Better Late Than Never Part Deux

Boy, I'll bet seeing that in your rear view mirror ruined your day.
I guess I'll throw in the pictures of the Grumman S-2 Tracker:



And the Sikorsky CH-53 Sea Stallion:



And one more:



The boys at McDonnell Douglas had their thinking caps on when they came up with that puppy.
Here again, is a link to the Pacific War Memorial and MCBH.
I didn't realize it at the time, but I took over seventy pictures. Most of them focused on this:



You can find the particulars on the original Marine Corps War Memorial here(edit: the sculpture is not a replica of the Marine Corps War Memorial in Washington, but of another based upon Rosenthal's picture named the National Iwo Jima Memorial. This monument is located in Conneticut. Info on the Pacific War Memorial can be found here). If you saw Flags of Our Fathers, you know the story behind the image is a bit tragic.
I don't know at what scale this reproduction is, but the link above says the original figures are thirty-two feet tall, and the ones here are a little larger than human scale. I think; it's hard to tell for they rest about eight or nine feet off the ground. Around the four sides of the base are information plaques telling about the battle and how the original photo and Rosenthal's picture were taken:



The sun was getting low and taking on that warm quality you get in the afternoon or morning. It was hitting the sculpture on what I believe is the face; the side where you can see the expression on the men's faces, though I wished the sun was a bit lower.
Here's a good close up:



You can see the rope wound up on the base of the pole. I asked a couple of the guards about it and found out that the only time the flag is lowered is when it is replaced.
This is going to sound a bit hokey, but really, words cannot express how it feels to be there at the base of the statue.
I guess I'll let the pictures say the rest:







A carnation lei and a bouquet of flowers also lay at rest on the engraved red brick. It didn't feel right taking pictures of them. The hibiscus was a random flower that had fallen off the hibiscus bushes that surround the base.
I've also been reading some books on Hawaiian myths and such and some stories have been about sacred rocks. I also saw this:




From Marine Corps Base Hawaii, this is The Flat Tire, signing off.