December 7, 1941. For the folks who were alive on that day, it will always be burned into their memory. I remember hearing of the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese with a clarity which has not changed over the years.
I was a youngster then. My dad was in the Army, a colonel. We were living in Seattle at the time. The family had been to church that morning, it was a Sunday, and in the afternoon we were at the Preston Lumber Company. Dad was finishing a drop leaf table which he had been working on for a couple of months. Working with wood, in this case mahogany, was a favorite pastime of his. The table design was based on plans he had received from the Smithsonian Institute. All it needed was the final coat of finish. It was to be a gift from him to my mother that Christmas.
He was finishing it up when the radio announced the attack on Pearl Harbor. I remember my dad's deep sigh followed by a silent prayer. I asked him what the problem was, and he tried to explain to me how our world was going to change. It didn't mean a lot to me, but his demeanor caused apprehension which I didn't understand. He took another hour or so to finish the table before we left. That table, which is now in possession of my brother, was the last major piece of woodwork he ever made.
The seriousness of the Japanese attack didn't really mean anything until we got home. Dad was pretty silent. He didn't even have that much to say to my mother. He just went upstairs to the bedroom, opened the closet, and got out his uniform.
I polished his shoes and Sam Browne belt while he showered and dressed. I cried as I did. I knew that things would never be the same although I didn't know why. Dressed in his uniform he went downstairs where the rest of the family was listening to the radio news about the attack. "I think I'll be going to the office for a while. I don't know when I'll be home so don't wait up," he said. Of course we did. It was a dark day.
We later found out that most of the Navy's Pacific fleet had been destroyed or damaged on that Sunday. Military deaths at Pearl Harbor numbered 2,403. The United States was plunged into the most violent and widespread war in history. Before it was over five hundred thousand Americans died in combat. They fought all over the world and liberated tens of millions of people enslaved by the worst kind of tyrants. Our industry produced unimaginable amounts of materials with which to fight and win a war that spanned all of Europe, the Mediterranean, Africa, India, the Pacific Ocean, Alaska, Borneo.
In the end, United States resources, production, manpower, and dedication literally saved the world from dictatorships whose violence was, and still is, beyond comprehension. And after it was over we rebuilt the economies of not only of our allied countries with whom we fought, but also of the countries which we defeated and were in financial and physical devastation.
We helped millions of people who were displaced from their homes and countries and starving to death because of the German new order of the Thousand Year Reich and Japanese Imperialism. We liberated dying prisoners in Nazi concentration camps, death camps literally, where more than six million Jews along were murdered and systematically cremated or buried, often alive, in mass graves by German oppressors. Atrocities by the Japanese were no less brutal as millions died in their prison camps throughout Asia and the Pacific.
We gained nothing from the war. No new lands, no loot, no tribute. We did it because it was right. We did it because we expected it of ourselves and because we knew God expected it of us.
What we did in those years is remembered by those of us who lived through it. It is mostly unknown to the generations who followed us. It's too bad. It was our country's finest hour.
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