--lyrics by Sammy Kaye

 

The number of Americans left who can remember the day “which will live in infamy” is dwindling. The attack on Pearl Harbor took place 71 years ago today on Sunday morning, December 7, 1941. It is our duty to remember that date—not in anger—but in memory of all those who gave their lives on that fateful day. We honor also the men and women who picked up their lives and went on to do all that was necessary to win a victory against the axis powers that sought to dominate the world. 

 

I was a young boy on that date in history. I did not know where Pearl Harbor was located, and I had no idea at all who or what a “jap” was, although I was to hear that term used with a lot of anger during the coming months. I understood the concept of a bombing, and I was soon to see much of it in newsreels in the local movie theatre. During the coming months, I also was to become a scavenger extraordinaire in finding scraps of metal to place in front of our house in support of the war effort. Like many of the homes in my small town, we did not have a curb and the road was not paved. An open bed “freedom” truck came around once a week to collect the scraps. My older brother went off to war, and returned home a few years later with a chest full of medals and a large chunk of his back missing. He had left it in scattered pieces on the European terrain. By then he was a very mature 21 years old. I wrote a poem to his heroics that is posted on this website under the title “No Time to Die.”

 

When the war finally ended in 1945 between 62 and 78 million human beings were dead, all having paid the cost of megalomania by the few with their lives. Many more died from hunger and from the cold than died in battle. Many millions of others were exterminated in concentration camps. Many others were human experiments in how to kill with ungodly diseases created in laboratories. The carnage remains a toll in human life and suffering that needs to be assimilated, distilled, and understood.   That process has not yet happened. We cannot fully honor all those who died until we find a way to assure our own survival. That is our task. That is our duty. That is how we honor the dead. That is how we honor ourselves.

 

The world is not a safer place today. Now we have the means by which to exterminate all human life in a matter of a few days.   The nuclear threat is somewhat diminished from the dominant position it held in the Cold War period between 1950-1990. Still, it remains. Now chemical and biological weapons pose the biggest threat. They are easier to produce, easier to unleash, and many rogue states have them.

 

Let’s remember Pearl Harbor today. But let us not forget that the greatest tribute we can pay to all who gave their lives at that beautiful location in 1941,and to all those who died in that war and in all wars since then, is to show that we have the will and the courage to take the power to declare and wage war away from tyrants.  Let’s also resolve to honor the dead by using our God-given brains to find other ways to save and to perpetuate life.