MCB HAWAII, KANEOHE BAY, Hawaii -- The Pacific War Memorial aboard MCB Hawaii, Kaneohe Bay, is complete after a local mason added four stone benches around the monument Oct. 22.
The benches, weighing nearly 1,000 pounds each, are the final adornments scheduled at the monument.
Donald Jones, a mason and a veteran Marine, donated the materials and labor to add the benches to the monument. He has done work on some of Hawaii's finest structures, and according to Alice Clark, chair of the Pacific War Memorial Association, there is no finer craftsman who could have worked on the PWM project.
Jones, who also set the stones around the base of the bronze statue part of the memorial, said he donated the time and materials because it seemed like the right thing to do.
"It just felt good," he said, as he lifted the slabs from his truck onto the bench bases. "I was a Marine, my step father was a Marine, and my brother was a Marine, and I thought that helping complete this project would be the right thing to do."
Sergeant Leron Patter-son, supply noncommissioned officer in charge at the base facilities department, helped Jones work the raw stone slabs into benches, and Jones said he really appreciated the help.
Jones' work with the base and the Pacific War Memorial Association was the first time he had worked with Marines since he left the Vietnam Conflict in 1968.