Attack on Pearl Harbor

Just a reminder, for those of us who have not been to the sands of Waikiki, seen Pearl Harbor and the National Cemetary on Oahu, today is the day that Pearl Harbor was bombed. It is also the day that inspired my father, an immigrant who just came to our shores, to enlist in the Navy and fight for the US during World War II.

Some things should not be forgotten. Among those things are our servicemen and women (doubly so during the holidays), as well as the attack on Pearl Harbor and the lessons we learned at Hiroshima and Nagasake. But not to exclude places like Dresden where we carpet bombed and the Nazi concentration camps that we liberated.

For a lack of a better term, there is an interesting balance between remembering these events and over-emphasizing them. I lost part of my family in the concentration camps as well as in WWII, yet I also have elderly Japanese-American neighbors who were interred during WWII and lost everything. These people were actually born in the U.S. but were of Japanese ancestry and suffered because of it. December 7th is a day when these people are most uncomfortable.

It is true that we should never forget these events for the reason that we whould learn from them so they will never happen again.

It is hard being serious so early in the morning!

Bonehead

today is my mother in laws birthday.. She was 12 or 13 when the attack happened.. Her father was superintendant for the Stafford school systems... Was telling me once how the father closed all schools immediately because so many men in town at that time, were guardsmen and knew they would leave instantly...