December 7, 1941

"A Date Which Will Live In Infamy..."


I wasn't around on this day in 1941 when Japan executed their attack on the US Pacific Naval outpost of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii...

69 years ago (oops...make that SEVENTY YEARS AGO.)

But I've heard the stories about that day my entire life (since I was born shortly less than 18 years later) and lived outside a military base for the following 18 years after that period and had family members which served in the world war which ensued.

I saw the pride and fire and pain in their eyes when the topic came up.

Funny thing...

most of the men and women I knew really wouldn't talk in detail about their service but did have a strong opinion about our country's ultimate participation in what has come to be known as World War II...the sequel to World War I..."The War to end all Wars."

I guess that some people would say that it is easy for me to sit here at my age and compromised health in the floor in front of a computer in my living room and filibuster about the need for our country to continue to take the lead on the world stage in enforcing the rule of law and defend humanity as we have over the past 235 years.

But if something like the attack on Pearl Harbor happened again this morning and if the US military called me I'd get off my butt and go...even if it was only to do things like issue uniforms or run a computer or paint sidewalk stripes on Navy bases.

So this morning...in an out of character moment...instead of offering political commentary, I'll just offer my thanks for the service and sacrifices made by those patriots which served both before we officially declared war on Germany and Japan and after President Roosevelt's famous speech...the closing passages which I offer here:

"Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory, and our interests are in grave danger.

With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph -- so help us God.

I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7th, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese empire."

All you have to do today is change the date in that speech to September 11, 2001 and substitute the words "Radical Muslims" for "Japanese Empire" and you have a pretty good starting point for solving things around here for the next 69 years....

but our politicians don't have the backbone and spleen to do it in convincing manner like we did in the 1940's.

In closing, on this anniversary of the loss of thousands of lives in Hawaii in a cowardly act of war, I offer my own hearty "God Bless America."

Yet I also observe that it is critical that we in this next election in 2012 somehow manage to overcome the forces which are working from within to make us a country which could not today and would not in 1941 have been able to muster the manpower and industrial might to succeed in winning a war forced upon us.