Mario Perez/CBSIt was indeed a day that will in infamy, but it's not the one you're thinking.
CBS apologized to World War II veterans who were offended by a Hawaii Five-0 shoot at a Honolulu cemetery last week at the same time they were commemorating Pearl Harbor and the victims who died in the attack.
Here's what happened.
Per the Hawaii Reporter, 23 survivors attended a ceremony at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific paying tribute to their fallen comrades when they were taken aback by the sight of the police procedural filming a scene nearby featuring Lt. Steve McGarrett (Alex O'Loughlin) visiting his fictional father's grave—apparently with little heed to the actual heroes buried at the sacred site.
The controversy was stoked by Steffan Tubbs, a morning news cohost in Denver and a board member with the Greatest Generations Foundation, who wrote a piece Monday in The Reporter claiming the crew not only walked all over the graves of the victims, but didn't halt their work and show the appropriate respect during the ceremony when the vets held a moment of silence and taps and the national anthem were played.
Adding insult to injury, he noted that a Five-0 production assistant asked the group to move, noting producers had rented that part of the public cemetery for the day, and camera and lighting equipment was placed on some graves or close by.
"It gets worse," added Tubbs. "The TGGF program had brought 24 red roses to place at the gravesites on the opposite side of the Punchbowl. The program crew actually had one of their men wearing a backpack and earplug walk through—infiltrate—our rose-laying ceremony hushing everyone."
He called the crew's behavior "a disgrace," and after they boarded the bus, he said that at his urging, many of the Greatest Generation in his group gave the CBS crew "a one-fingered military salute."
Needless to say, word quickly spread of the controversy through social media, prompting Hawaii Five-0's executive producer Peter Lenkov to offer up an official mea culpa to the "veterans and members of the Greatest Generation Foundation whom we unintentionally offended when our events coincided."
"Any rudeness by our staff can only be attributed to haste to finish our work, not a lack of respect for men and women who have served and sacrificed for their country. And for that, too, we sincerely apologize to any that were offended," he said in a statement to E! News.
The producer added that the production did have a permit.
"We recognize the privilege of filming in Hawaii and we are acutely aware of the deserved respect for its culture, history and the reverence that should be afforded to all of our veterans, particularly those who served so nobly in Hawaii and at Pearl Harbor," he said. "Furthermore, the series we produce carries a demonstrative pro-military message."
Lenkov also noted that contrary to some reports, his crew did in fact stop work "during the playing of the national anthem and taps and for the remainder of the ceremony."