70 years ago today the Japanese launched their sneak attack upon Pearl Harbor in the US Territory of Hawaii. This action forced the United States into WWII.
There are entire forests of trees turned to paper written about Pearl Harbor. I have nothing to add. If you want to learn more I recommend you head to the library or your favorite bookstore and get a copy of Gordon Prange's epic history At Dawn We Slept.
I intend to watch Tora,Tora, Tora this evening.
Seventy years. For the youth of today WWII and Pearl Harbor are as remote as The Spanish American War was to my brother and I or the Civil War to our Grandparents. History stands still, time marches on.
My great-grandfather was a veteran of the Spanish-American War. He died before I was born, but my Grandmother was active in the Spanish-American War Auxiliary. She always wanted my brother and I to go with her to the National Conventions. I met some Span-Am Veterans, including some of the last ones alive. She wanted us to read at Veteran's Day Ceremonies. For a young me it was just a bunch of old people. I was too young to understand history is not in books, but rather people.
The people of WWII are dying fast. In a few years we will be reading stories of the last veteran passing away, just like the men of WWI or the Civil War. We are thirty-five years removed from Vietnam.
More died at Pearl Harbor than on 9/11. The national shock was just as severe, perhaps more so. The news of the day was print and radio, there were no live shots from CNNABCNBCCBS to keep the public informed. The horror arrived in pictures and newsreels.
Today will come and go, its passing just another mile marker on history's highway. The importance of the date dimmed by time. In another generation, WWII will be just more battles, another war, fodder for movies and stories. Pearl Harbor will just be a place mentioned in a history book like Waterloo or Trafalgar.
Pearl Harbor was the defining memory for an entire generation of Americans. Over the time of history it will become just like the speed bump in the grocery store parking lot. It will slowly shrink from memory until we barely notice it.
But for today, we will remember and honor those who gave their lives for Freedom. December 7, 1941. A date that will live in infamy.
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