Remembering the Past

This week marks the 70th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor surprise attack by the Japanese on December 7, 1941.

Most Americans alive today cannot recall that day and year. They can’t even recall what the surprise attack was about nor is there the sense that this one attack galvanized a sleeping giant – the United States of America.

Pearl Harbor was more about everything that followed than the attack itself.

The attack forced America into the war, which turned out to be the greatest struggle against fascist tyranny in the history of mankind.

Japan thought it would conquer all of Asia and Southeast Asia and all the island nations of the Pacific Ocean while Germany sought European domination and the control of Russia and Africa.

The Reich that was to have lasted 1000 years came up short when it collapsed in 1945.

Japan capitulated following that nation’s complete destruction and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

President Franklin Roosevelt called December 7, “A date which will live in infamy.”

He was right about that.

Our entry into the war spelled the end for the major aggressors and changed the course of human history.