A few thoughts on Pearl Harbor Day

I can't remember a time when I didn't think of Dec. 7th as Pearl Harbor Day. I have an early memory, perhaps I was seven or eight, of being in Sunday School one morning when the teacher (Mildred, who still worships with us every Sunday; I think she's about 100 years old) asked for the date. I spoke up loudly, "It's Pearl Harbor Day; Dec. 7th." Many books, films and TV shows were to follow; it became part of the cultural mythology that has informed my world-view. Now, it's rather difficult to express just how much the event shapes my world-view. Well, OK, I'll try, if you insist. The attack on Pearl Harbor thrust the US into World War II. That war was, according to the Wikipedea, "the most extensive and costly armed conflict in the history of the world." And, so it was. Most people alive today have no concept at all about the scope of it. Not just how it affected everyday life, but what held in the balance. This was the event that ended the America First Movement, as well as the era of the big Battleship. It was the event that would shape the geo-political globe until another suprise attack shoved it into a different direction on Sept. 11, 2001. If anyone wanted to listen, Churchill immediately grasped the situation right after the attack. He said, "Now at this very moment I knew the United States was in the war, up to the neck and in to the death. So we had won after all!...Hitler's fate was sealed. Mussolini's fate was sealed. As for the Japanese, they would be ground to powder." Yes, that's right, he was happy about it. Remember, his war had been going on for a couple of years already, and things were looking pretty dismal. This was the beginning of the end in his view. And so it was, just four years later, the war was over, the world turned upside down. And for the first time, the victors of a war decided the best thing to do to keep this from happening again was to restore the economic vitality of the vanquished. Inter-national wars have been small and rare since. Over simplification? Sure, but the facts are that the Attack on Pearl Harbor set in motion huge global forces that put us where we are today. A generous understanding of these forces would be of great help in understanding events of today.

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