A Date which will live in infamy...

[Fuzzy Bear 12]

A couple of years ago I began a reading voyage dedicated to finding out the reasons. I returned knowing allot about dictators, the leaders, the generals, the battles, the movements, the decisions and equipment. I noted that very little was said about the thousands/millions of individuals and families that were maimed, injured, disabled, torn apart, blown up, gassed, burned and killed. I suppose we share a mutual silence toward death and destruction; it is both a fear and a hope that somehow it is kept far from our doors forever. It may be that we set aside certain days to reflect on those answers about our wars and our prayers for them to end. fb

[scoutldr 732]

My dad was a WWII submarine veteran, retiring in 1964. Coincidentally, I spent last week on business at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center, where he entered boot camp in 1942. On Thursday, we awoke to find all the flags on the base at half-staff. No one knew why, until I reminded tham that it was Pearl Harbor Day. I have visited Pearl Harbor Naval Station three times over the years. I am always in awe, seeing the very barracks where my dad, a 17 year old farm boy, spent the early days of the war, the Royal Hawaiian Hotel where the submarine crews were housed between war patrols, the USS Arizona memorial and museum, and looking out over the very mountain ranges from where Japanese Zeroes rained down their terror. We remember because our parents and grandparents saved the world from terror and domination by tyrants. Some served in the military, while others served on the home front working in shipyards and factories or even by merely collecting newspapers and scrap metal for the war effort (Scouts collected millions of tons).

 

I like to believe that that the current crop of brave men and women serving in the military will be remembered in the same light, and that we did our part here at home for the effort.