To me, December 7th is just as important as September 11th. I see the veterans of the Second World War and I know they will soon be extinct! Once there was a great deal of them, your parents or uncles and aunts. They came home from the ordeal we call war, some mentally scared and some physically, yet we still don’t learn the lessons of war.
I can’t imagine what it felt like that Sunday morning back in 1941, when the sirens were done wailing, and the gunfire ceased, and America heard the news that she was deliberately attacked in some far away exotic island! Not only was she attacked, but that we were now about to embark on a great crusade against tyranny.
But what was the mind-set that initial hour that the news broke, and our fleet was sunk? The Japanese were sounding invincible from the newscasts. Did we all fear an invasion? Did we wonder if we COULD defeat this unknown enemy, who just sunk our fleet?
When does the anger set in, after the attack, immediately? Is there time for fear if you are seeking revenge?
And those men and women, the ones who are the dying breed, the ‘Greatest Generation’ as Tom Brokaw so eloquently called them, the very ones at Pearl Harbor, what raced through their minds as they witnessed the unprovoked and “Dastardly” act of war the Japanese perpetrated on us, as President Roosevelt described it?
That war, more than any other outside the Revolution, shaped America like no other war could. It may have even laid the groundwork for 9/11!
No comments:
Post a Comment