Turning tragedy into triumph is a difficult feat to pull off. The members of Central High School’s band have done it, with the help of their parents, the school, World War II survivors and caring members of the community.

Band mom Terry Sinotte and six other band parents raised $200,000 in less than a year to send the band to Pearl Harbor to play there on the 70th anniversary of that fateful attack. That the students got there at all is an incredible achievement. What they did and saw there will make a difference in all of their lives, and possibly in whatever communities they settle as adults.

This wasn’t a band competition. There was no trophy to be won. This was an expression of, and lesson in, American citizenship.

The band played at Pearl Harbor to honor three Central alumni — Army Private Joseph Jedrysik, Seaman 1st Class David Crossett and Seaman 2nd Class Joseph Rozmus — who were killed in the Japanese raid seven decades ago. They did not just play, take in some sights, then return home with some leis and T-shirts. They saw where each of those men died.

They located Rozmus’ name on a memorial, heard the tale of Jedrysik dying while heroically firing his machine gun at oncoming aircraft, and played near the site where Crossett lost his life aboard the USS Utah a concert with no other audience but the dead.

They visited with Jedrysik’s sister and met service members who’d seen combat recently, including a wounded Iraq War veteran.

As photographer Bob LaPree so movingly reported, the 113 students who went on this trip got so much more than a history lesson. They got to see firsthand the sacrifices so many have made so they can be free to govern themselves. As the memorial’s official historian told them, they must participate actively in their nation’s civic life if they are to prevent all those Americans from having died in vain.

That’s a tremendous lesson learned in a powerful way.

Our city, and our country, cannot help but be improved by 113 teenagers having learned it.