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5 Hawaii military sites part of new ‘Valor in Pacific’ national monumentBy DENNIS CAMIREAdvertiser Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — Five Hawai..i sites, including the USS Arizona Memorial, are part of a new World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument that President Bush created Friday in advance of Sunday’s 67th observance of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Bush also signed the presidential proclamation in honor of the National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day 2008.
“The national monument will include nine sites — five in Hawai..i, three in Alaska and one in California at the Tule Lake Segregation Center, which was where Japanese Americans were detained during World War II,” said Bush shortly before signing the proclamation that created the monument.
The designation sets aside the Pacific war sites for greater protection and recognition.
The other Hawai..i sites include the Battleship Row moorings from Dec. 7, 1941, the USS Oklahoma Memorial, the USS Utah Memorial and six chief petty officer bungalows on Ford Island at Pearl Harbor.
The Alaskan sites include the battlefield on Attu Island, a B-24 crash site on Atka Island and the Japanese occupation site on Kiska Island.
Another 19 sites, scattered from a midget Japanese submarine off Oahu to the War in the Pacific National Historic Park in Guam to Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands, will receive official recognition.
Bush said the monument would remind generations of Americans of the sacrifices that were made to protect the country and also remind the younger generations about the effect of freedom.
“One of the great stories during World War II was that people fought bitterly to defend our country and way of life and then worked to help our enemies develop democracies according to their own cultures and their own history,” Bush said.
Today, Japan is one of the United States’ strongest allies in defending and spreading liberty, Bush said.