A Day That Shall Live in Infamy...

Sixty-eight years ago today, Imperial Japan attacked the U.S. at Pearl Harbor.  Until 9/11, this event was unrivaled as the most horrible unprovoked attack the U.S. had ever suffered.  A few Pearl Harbor survivors are still alive, and some are planning to visit the site today.  Here in California, we have special license plates to honor Pearl Harbor survivors – and I still see them driving around occasionally.

Just once, several years ago, I actually had the chance to meet and talk with one of these Pearl Harbor survivors, as we both climbed out of our cars in a grocery store parking lot.  The fellow I met was 17 years old at the time of the attack, and was a “plane wrangler” at one of the air bases.  His job was to move the fighter planes from hangers to the flight line and vice versa.  He could do little on that day except to hide from the attacking Japanese planes, and to help clean up afterwards.

Today I read that historians believe they have found the missing fifth Japanese mini-sub – and that they have evidence that it actually participated in the attack (unlike the other four).  If this is proven, a little re-writing of history will be required...

While 9/11 looms much larger in my mind these days, the Pearl Harbor attack still holds many lessons for us.  I've read extensively on World War II in general, and the Pacific theatre in particular, and yet still every time I read a new book I run into new information.  The most useful things, I think, are the illustrations about how people actually behave under extreme circumstances.  Our society rests in large part on assumptions about good behavior by people all over the world – and Pearl Harbor teaches us that it ain't necessarily so.  The whole period has been so thoroughly mined by historians that one can quite easily get an understanding about how and why both sides acted the way they did.  This is not yet possible with 9/11.

Anyway, take a few moments today to reflect on the meaning of the Pearl Harbor attack.  If you have the opportunity, by all means do your bit to honor those who served there – both those who died, and those who survived...