| || | On The National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific November
23, 2012 - Ray Tsuchiyama Above-listed is the official name,
known in Hawai’i as simply “Punchbowl”, for the large green,
calming dipped expanse atop an extinct volcanic tuff cone
located near downtown Honolulu. According to geologic time, the
cone is not that ancient, as it was blasted and formed about
75,000 to 100,000 years ago during the most “recent” period of
volcanic activity on Oahu Island. After the 1893 Overthrow, the
new Republic of Hawai’i government assigned a committee to
investigate various land parcels, and a committee (all pro-
Republic, non-Kingdom loyalists) recommended that Punchbowl
become the site for a new cemetery. However, the new pro-Dole
government rejected the idea, since that would put a graveyard
for all races overlooking the Republic’s new splendid capital
city, and for the next fifty years, after the Territory of
Hawai’i was established, the idea for a cemetery languished.*
After World War II Congress and veteran’s