“A day that shall live in infamy”… and has for 75 years.
That day shifted America and shifted Americans, much like 9/11… we came together as one people. One people that had been attacked. One people whose quiet Sunday morning was shattered by bomb bursts, flying bullets and death. One people…
In all the stories I have read about Pearl Harbor and the days that followed, there is one thing that was notably missing. There were no hyphenated Americans. Even the Japanese Americans, who were rounded up and sent to camps and guarded, did not use a hyphen.
Everyday people, movie stars and sport heroes enlisted. A lot of people took a knee, but it was to pray not protest the National Anthem. How things have changed…
Many of my military friends responded to a text I sent out this morning. One said, “My fondest memories of my dad were listening to his Pearl Harbor stories.” Another told me, “My dad was in the Philippines when it happened; it was chaos.”
For my generation, a veteran was personal. They were our fathers, uncles. They were our mothers and aunts. For my children’s generation they were grandpas and grandmas. For my children’s children, they were pictures on the mantel, memories they didn’t have, voices they never heard…
Soon now, those ranks will be empty. It won’t be long before the Longest Day, “A day that shall live in infamy” and that Bridge that was too far will only be movies. Like all wars and warriors, they will march off into the evening fog and quietly sleep away into history.
New wars, new days will replace them. New deaths, new graves will break hearts… so far now remember the people that were there that day, for as the old military toast says, “To us and those like us… Damn few left.”