77 YEARS OF REMEMBRANCE

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The day before yesterday, we as a country buried a great President, as Jon Meacham the great presidential historian called the last Presidential warrior from World War II. Those were not his exact words but similar. President George H. W. Bush is remembered for his heroics as a fighter pilot who was shot down in the Pacific, losing his two crewmates and narrowly escaping the capture by Japanese when a U.S. submarine rescued him.

Today is the 77th anniversary of Pearl Harbor. December 7th, 1941 is perhaps the most intriguing date in American history, filled with the drama of the day, the suspicions that still seem to hover over the day back then and the conspiracy theories that seem to abound.

There is the theory that Franklin D. Roosevelt knew the Japanese were coming and let it happen for good reason, and that was Adolf Hitler and his plans for world conquest. England was losing the war and fear was once it collapsed the Germans would then invade Canada and then the Nazis would be at our border. Since German and Italy along with Japan comprised the Axis powers, fighting one meant fighting them all. The American public did not want involvement in some foreign war like it had in 1917, and once again having us lose young sons to a foreign conflict. So, if we were attacked, the American public would then be behind a war, thus saving England and keeping the war away from American shores or borders.

There other “facts” to support this theory, the idea that we had monitoring bases around the rim of the Pacific that tracked the Japanese fleet as it moved toward Hawaii to attack America, meant we monitored the attacking fleet but let it happen.

I like to think that it keeps the day alive in our lives, though many of us were not alive when it happened. Let’s remember those who perished in that war, not just those in uniforms, but the too many civilians, the enemy soldiers that were torn away from their families, our own and those of our allies as well. Let’s remember those that died for the crime of believing in God in their own way or whose lifestyles were different. Most of all, as humans, let us ask for forgiveness for all the killing.