“The Lord is coming, always coming. When you have ears to hear and eyes to see, you will recognize him at any moment of your life. Life is Advent; life is recognizing the coming of the Lord.”
–Henri Nouwen.
“I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.”
–Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, commenting on the aftermath of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s surprise attack on U.S. Naval Forces at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941
Eighty-four (84) years ago today, at 7:48 a.m. (Hawaiian Standard Time), the Japanese Imperial Navy attacked without warning United States Naval Forces stationed at Pearl Harbor on the island of Oahu. The casualties were high, with 2,335 dead, and 1,143 wounded. The bulk of the United States Pacific naval fleet lay sunk upon the harbor floor, while its planes burned on the tarmac. Fortunately, the fleet’s aircraft carriers were at sea, and thus, unharmed.
The Pearl Harbor attack was well coordinated with Japanese attacks later that day on Guam, Philippines, Wake Island, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaya. The Japanese plan to disable the United States’ ability to interfere with their expansionist plans succeeded. But success came at a tremendous cost.
The Japanese attack aroused an anger in the American people, who previously wished no part of foreign engagements. A country whose people were willing to sit on the sidelines on December 6 as hostilities raged around the globe were suddenly plunged into the midst of the turmoil, responding with an energy and a vengeance that the Axis powers could never match. The mobilized American nation proved its mettle by leading the destruction—the utter destruction—of Germany, Italy and Japan, all formidable military and economic powers at the war’s height.
The war also changed the lives of many, including my own father, as young men were ripped from their peaceful rural existences, and sent abroad to witness, fight in, and discover a whole world. And it changed the role of the United States as a nation, shedding our prior historic role of isolationism, and thrusting the mantle of internationalism onto our collective shoulders as we used our nation’s might to ensure that such an atrocity would never again occur. As stated by then President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, “December 7, 1941 is a day which will live in infamy.” And so it is, still today.
“Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.”
–Benjamin Franklin.
GFK
Observations From The Fifth Estate 