While the memorial that I visited in Scottsdale for the USS Arizona didn?t quite have the same somber vibe as the memorial at Pearl Harbor, they had one feature that helped visualize the loss of life just on the Arizona that day.

They had these lighted poles that represented each person on the ship that day. An overwhelming number of the poles were roughly six or so feet in length with a very few really short poles scattered randomly amongst them. The tall poles represent each person that lost their life that day and the small number of short poles were for those who survived.

Hearing the numbers is one thing but seeing those lives represented the way they did it really brought those numbers into perspective.

Putting into perspective that the lives lost aboard the Arizona only totaled about half of the casualties that day the loss of life really was tragic.