A day of infamy, the day Japan attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor, is commemorated with the National Pearl Harbor Day of Remembrance each year on December 7. On that day in 1941, more than 2,400 people died in Japan’s attack on the Hawaiian base of America’s Pacific Fleet. Hundreds of aircraft were destroyed or damaged, as were most of the ships in the harbor, and thousands of service men and women were killed or injured. It was an unprecedented surprise attack that precipitated the United States entry into WW II as we sided with the Allies and declared war on Japan.
If you go to Ford Island, the old hanger is still there (now an Air Museum) and in the windows, you can still see the bullet holes from the Japanese planes straffing the air field.
The lesson of Pearl Harbor has been forgotten by progressives who insist on destroying our military, leaving us vulnerable.
I’m surprised we haven’t sent a delegation over to Tokyo to apologize for our boats being in the way of their torpedoes and bombs.
Such resilience. Such sacrifice. So much TRUE heroism under fire. Those men reeled from a sucker punch, wiped the blood from their eyes, and came back as hard as they could until their assailants were beaten into submission, in defense of God and Country, Honor and Freedom, Home and Family.
Those men did their job.
And all for nothing as we threw it all away.
They could say this with a clear conscience;
“It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule.”
-JRR Tolkien, “The Return of the King”
Those men uprooted the evil in THEIR time.
And by the indulgent peace they created, sowed the seeds for a new evil to grow.
For evil always returns, all the more angry for having been checked.
ALWAYS.
As we seek to give those heroes who are almost all mustered out of this world by now their laurels, let us think instead of how we may honor their memories with our deeds instead of our words.
The Nation that they nurtured with their dearest blood has again been attacked in dishonorble stealth, this time by vermin who seek to destroy her from within and hand her broken body over to gloating foreign tyrants, some with deep roots in the very evil THOSE men warred against.
Do remember them today.
Then consider that the best way to honor them is by emulating them.
They uprooted the evil in the fields that THEY knew.
When and where to take the spade to OUR fields is what we should be considering in defense of the legacy they left us.
And whenever that is, may we turn to the same God that championed them to victory soon.
For if we fail or even delay too long, the very memories of their deeds shall be forbidden.
To the few of us that they allow to survive.
Those men did their duty, and most have gone to their well-earned reward.
May we turn to OUR duty towards the Nation they protected soon and very soon, before we go to ours.
Many gave their lives for us and we need to keep freedom free in their honor and not waste their gift to us and pass it on along for others to have and hopefully keep.
…and keep in mind that the government wants these memories to die with the vets, and has for awhile.
in the mid-2000s, my son thanked me for teaching him about WWII and taking him to museums and such to lean more.
Taken aback, I asked him why.
He said his school skipped it almost entirely.
In favor of lessons of the legacy of colonization from Africa to the South Pacific.
They not only ARE erasing our history, they HAVE BEEN for quite some time.
Do not let them.
For it is the doom of men that they forget.
The first time I was in Pearl Harbor was in the late Summer of 1973 when the Kitty Hawk was participating in joint naval exercises with the Brits and Australians off the coast of Hawaii. A friend of mine from my squadron VF 114 and I were talking about the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941 and even though it had been almost 32 years since the Japanese attacked us and started World War 2, we could still feel the impact of the Japanese sneak attack just talking about it. It was a sobering moment for both of us and it’s hard to believe now that the survivors of the Pearl Harbor were only in their late 40’s and early 50’s back then and now only a handful are left and they’re all in their late 90’s. Within the next 5 to 10 years all the older WW 2 vets will be gone and hopefully never forgotten by the younger generations who are alive because of their sacrifices in WW 2. As a Vietnam era veteran, I will never forget what they did to save our freedom from both the Japanese and Nazi Germany.
There are still many unreleased photos in the archive.
A few were preveiwed here ways back.
Close-ups and Towers and Coconut Trees.
Batterys and Beaches and Battleships.
Aircraft and Air Ports and Ala Moana Aiea.
Diamond Head too.
Our future enemies learned their lesson well; never attack the US directly. Now we are under siege from enemies within. And we are losing, little by little.
“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. The only way they can inherit the freedom we have known is if we fight for it, protect it, defend it, and then hand it to them with the well fought lessons of how they in their lifetime must do the same. And if you and I don’t do this, then you and I may well spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it once was like in America when men were free. “– Ronald Reagan 1961
As my good friend Keith who turns 90 today, he refers to it as “The day the Japanese Imperial Navy Fucked up my Ninth Birthday Party!”
It was horrible and wonderful at the same time. Horrible for the loss of life from a “sucker punch” and exposing our vulnerability and at the same time kicking off the most amazing national response.
I doubt if that kind of response would happen today.
Tony R DECEMBER 7, 2022 AT 1:53 PM
“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.”
…true since Genesis in the Old Testament.
Genesis ends with Joseph son of Israel sitting at the right hand of Pharoh as the second most powerful man in all Egypt by the Lord’s help and grace, and Pharoh himself personally welcomes all the Jewish people to live beside them in peace and plenty.
Then we turn the page to Exodus.
After some geneology, the first line about the current state of things is;
“Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph.”
Genesis 1:8
…this Pharoh chooses to ignore all their history together or the fact that his kindom was preserved for him by a Jewish man who obeyed the God of Abraham, and so pressed all Israel into hard bondage, not withholding any cruelty, out of fear and envy and no other recorded reason.
Such are the affairs of Man.
No man is worthy of power.
All men will abuse it.
Our Founders knew this when they set this country up, that the issue would come up over and over again.
Those who bled at Pearl Harbor and beyond fought a man who thought himself a god, and proved him wrong.
And now the issue has come up again. Predictably so.
It is the turn of a new generation to put arrogant tyranny in its place.
These men were worthy.
It remains to be seen if we will be.
In ’44 and ’45 NYT published “news” reports calling my Dan and 3 uncles for killing Japs. On uncle forbid the Times on his property for deades. Prior to ’59 I thought he was an “extremist”. I went to the library in 59 and got several pages of NYT microfiche. Uncle was right. Several articles said Americans killed Japs because Americans were white nationalists. NO mention of Pear harbor!
NYT has been antiAmericans gaslighting for at least 80 years!
Again for emphasis NO MENTION OF PEAR HARBOR!
And don’t forget the American propaganda posters in World War 2 that said, “Let’s slap the crap out of Mr. Jap.” And the old joke about their being a slight Nip in the air on Dec. 7th.
My mom was twelve on December 7, 1941. Two doors down lived the Stevens family. Their son, Jack H. Stevens, perished aboard the USS Arizona.