USS Missouri BB-63 (Revised)

The completion of the battleship Missouri in May—what better way to celebrate Victory Day? Yet let us not forget the three final months of bitter struggle in the Pacific and the earth-shaking fury yet to come on mainland Japan.

Perhaps she arrived a little late to the war. Perhaps her presence was ceremonial—but on September 2, 1945, bearing the honor of the entire fleet, she sailed into the harbor at the westward end of the ocean where the sun dips into the waters, and solemnly bore witness to it all.

Upon her flew the very same American flag that Commodore Perry had hoisted a century before. It was the prestige of the victor, an eternal proclamation. It was jubilation and a show of force, peace and the dawn of a new era of upheaval.

But for this moment, let the young sailors don their crisp white uniforms and cheerfully witness the history. They have earned it.