Can’t let Pearl Harbor day pass without a comment. As a child of the postwar baby boom, I grew up with the echoes of a war before I was born still seeming to echo in my ears. Our teachers talked about it in elementary school. It was a staple of the action in our comic books, and of movies, and even TV. Every adult we knew could tell you where they were when they heard about Pearl Harbor.

For my generation, 9/11/01 was to us what 12/7/41 was to our parents: a Day of Infamy burned into our collective memory. Yet I’m told that there are kids today who don’t know why our armed forces are in Iraq or Afghanistan, and are unclear on who this “bin Laden” guy is, anyway. That’s just sad.
There’s no better way to remember the Greatest Generation than to honor the current one, the young Americans now fighting overseas. Here’s a young American who absolutely embodies everything in the collective American spirit that comes to mind when we “remember Pearl Harbor.” Thanks to Chris Lary for sending it along.

Stars & Stripes article

Snopes Article about the email that is going around.

1 COMMENT

  1. It is interesting to note the differences and similarities to today’s situation. Japan was building an effective military force and had already invaded China and Manchuria. Unlike today, they used uniformed soldiers against our uniformed soldiers. The mass murders that the Japanese conducted in China were unprecedented at the time ( We knew little about Hitler’s “final solution” at the time and much of Stalin’s rein of terror was is the future.) Now, we must fight against civilians without uniform both in the USA and abroad. They use may use crude weapons and tactics, but their willingness and numbers for suicide far exceeds the kamakazi pilots and submarine suicide pilots of Japan in WWII. When McCain said that we will be in Iraq for a hundred years, he was criticized in the press. This fight goes back to the Crusades and the hundred year war between France and England was short compared to what we now look forward to in time-span.

  3. I think the bomber was afraid after that little encounter. I would have been. Try to blow someone up and the only thing you get is a smoking bird flown your way. Hooah.

  4. WWII was fought by a motivated and INVOLVED public. Women saved aluminum and grew victory gardens. Children practiced air drills in school. Men bitched about the rationing, the gas shortage and either volunteered or were drafted (more of the later than the former).

    While there is much wacky debate on the left and the right over a draft (I am in favor of some sort of compulsory post high school service), it helped make the point to the nation. YOU ARE PART OF THIS WAR. Today with a volunteer military (and a small one to boot), an insignificant percentage of America has skin in the game. Most have the luxury of sitting home and watching MTV or playing a game of Wii. Damn few know who there elected representatives are no less the “details” of a far off war.

    As an aside, all this may just be the inevitable passage of time and memory. I heard the other day that in Vietnam (who took a much harder toll in the continuous wars from the 40’s thru the 70’s) the large percentage of under 25 folks similarly have a disconnect to their parents involvement in the conflicts. Memory is a funny kind of thing.

  5. In the early 1980s a poll of American college students found less than half of them could remember which Vietnam we’d fought for and which against in a war over only 10 years for America – and in which many of their fathers or uncles fought.

  6. Pearl Harbor brought this country into the war and united this country in terms of its people and manufacturing base. There was much indecision among the citizens who were still, “straddling the fence” with the exception of FDR’s lend lease program etc. It prompted Churchill to declare that on that night he, “Slept the sleep of the saved” [knowing we were united in war] Further in his memoirs as he was informed of the attack, he said; “So, Mankind shall not perish” Churchill went on to write that the American people are like a giant boiler that can not be stopped when united in their resolve for war. Our leaders today forget this at their own peril. [Our manufacturing base is mostly in China, or some third world country. We are quick to declare war without the full support of the American people, and in some recent history, we have not had intentions of winning! War should be, “unconditional” Nothing more, nothing less. There are many truths and lessons to be found in the attack on Pearl Harbor, I hope our leaders study them. The rules are always changing, and we always need to be prepared!

  7. This year on 9/ll “day of service/remembrance”, I was angered but by no means surprised to hear that my 8 year old learned only that the twin towers “fell down.” My wife and I then explained to her the Who, Why etc.

    They apparently deem it appropriate to teach children about “fisting” now, but acknowledging that evil people exist is too much for a child’s mind.