Remember Pearl Harbor

[Bob # 1]

Sad day in our history, not all was in vain as we still have our freedom to express ourselves be it good or bad

[shipahoy41]

Amen dad. I remember. I am flying my flag at half staff today. Freedom is not free. All gave some....some gave all!

[Blackhawk19]

70 years ago, I lowered my flag also ship!

[jigflinger]

It's a disgrace that the younger generation doesn't know what today is.:o

[jaxsprat]

It's a disgrace that the younger generation doesn't know what today is.:o

X2 yes indeed it is, saw on the boob tude the other nite where they interviewed bunch of grammar school kids all ages, they never heard of the words Pearl Harborbanghead

[popperonahead]

another 50 years and 9/11 will be forgotten as well. dayum shame, americans got such short attention spans.

[Lowellhturner]

I find it ironic that modern Japanese while aware that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were obliterated by American atomic bombs are unaware of WHY this occured. The "official" Japanese Government position is to "minimize' the teaching of the historical details in Japanese schools of the period from the early 1930`s upto about the end of WW 2. A recent poll in Japan found that only 1/3rd of all Japanese were only vaguely aware there WAS a Pacific War at all, and most were older than 30. More than 1/2 were completely unaware of the Pearl Harbor attack at all, let alone the all too common atrocities commited during the "Co Prosperity Sphere of Imperial Japan" in China, the Phillipine Islands, Singapore, Wake Island and so many other God forsaken spots from the Aleutian Islands to the central Indian Ocean. At least the grandchildren of the men who admittedly fought fanatically for their Emperor have vigorously enbraced democracy and rejected offensive war as a National policy. Have been to Pearl Harbor and manned the rails, rendering a salute to USS Arizona (BB- 39) to port. Also had the honor to put foot upon Midway, Wake Island, Guam, Bataan, Corrigador and Clark Airfield. Saw the abandoned fortifications, and saw the now quietly rusting debris of war; could not halp but think of countless young men on BOTH sides, facing each other, so many never to return home at all, and the numberous tens of thousands who did return to grieving families. Ironic that Magellaen named it the Pacific which literally means "Peaceful"; hopefully it will remain so in the future, but fron at least late 1941 to close to the end of 1945 it was everything BUT "Peaceful"...

[no1son]

My father remembered coming out of church and then hearing the news about Pearl Harbor on the car radio. My mother already had three brothers in the services by that time. My father and an additional one of her brothers had orders to report by the time Germany surrendered and a future brother-n-law was cut off in the Bulge. My ex-father-in-law and one of my mother's brothers saw intense action in the Pacific. The other brothers saw it in from North Africa and Italy through Germany including one who was among the first into part of Dachau. One of my father's younger uncles was even part of the supply inside the Soviet Union. These were all enlisted men, the guys who faced and lived through the worst that American service men faced. They all returned home, thankfully if all deeply scarred by what they had seen and done, but picked up and carried on anyway. Their letters home were full of horror, my mother's father's heart was broken by what the Germany he had been born in had become. He was not a young man by then and I really don't think he ever recovered. To say that those men saw action would be an understatement yet they did not experience the worst of it.

We dare not forget. We dare not allow what led up to it to happen again either.

The Japanese are making a huge mistake to ignore the preliminary buildups that led them to what they did. I suppose that would be in part because the Emperor's family had been directly involved with much of that, but the Emperor's family is now dead ended and there will be no future Emperor's out of that line.

The same for the European participants. Most of us know that side of it a little better than what happened in the Pacific. The Japanese and even the Chinese themselves were every bit as brutal as the Germans and the Soviets were, perhaps even more so.

We dare not forget those lessons of history, because we as a species dare not allow anything similar to WWII to happen again. Another all out war like that may not have any survivors, and it will almost certainly leave few if any surviving nations.

We dare not roll over again like happened ahead of WWII, but I do not see the solution simply in military buildup and action either. Excess military gets used by those who will not see the front lines and face the horrors directly. We have not yet worked out any other answer though and keep putting ourselves minutes away from another such conflict. I hope I never see one of those timelines get violated.

[yankee doodler]

X2 yes indeed it is, saw on the boob tude the other nite where they interviewed bunch of grammar school kids all ages, they never heard of the words Pearl Harborbanghead

Can't understand it. We learn so much from our history...what to do...what not to do again...how can we fail to keep our future citizens appraised of all that we've been through as a great democracy? Just don't make sense.

[no1son]

Can't understand it. We learn so much from our history...what to do...what not to do again...how can we fail to keep our future citizens appraised of all that we've been through as a great democracy? Just don't make sense.

Agreed. The whole area of civics and history has been de-emphasized in our schools. How can a democracy maintain itself unless civic responsibility and history are carefully and completely taught, not just as some throwaway course to fill out some coach's paycheck, so that people have the basis to make informed political decisions! Now I like sports well enough, in its place, but our schools need to be a whole lot more rounded in coursework than just whatever the local team's win/lose record is. I love a good ballgame. But more important subjects need to be addressed as well.