December 7, 1941

Vincent Chiarello wrote this morning:

Many of you will arise this morn, look out the window and see what the prospects are for a rainy or snowy day, and then proceed to have your breakfast. If you decide to turn on the radio for news, you may hear about traffic jams, and/or the situation in Iraq, but I wonder how many will hear from “the wireless” what particular day it is; after all, this singular event did happen 66 years ago, and Americans are notorious for their short memory spans.

Yet, it is our past and our traditions that have, in large part, kept us who and what we are, an awareness, however, that I recognize is fading with each year of my life. “Each generation writes its own history,” Croce wrote, but I fear that we our forgetting ours. More than six and a half decades ago, on December 7, 1941, the Japanese Imperial Navy attacked the U.S. Pacific fleet in Hawaii without warning, despite the presence of two of its “peace” representatives in Washington. More than two thousand U.S. military members were killed; US participation in World War II had begun.

I would bet that if any station, radio or television, does mention the fact that today is the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, it will be a short lived account. NPR will spend far more time talking about Kwanza than Pearl Harbor, but what is at risk here is the willful obliteration of what, in part, made this country great: our ability to rise as a united people and defeat our foe when it mattered. But for people of a certain age—mine—the “…day that will live in infamy” anniversary is alive and well. Many older people can still recall where they were on that date; members of my generation can do the same for November 22, 1963. Many have their stories about Pearl Harbor; I have mine.

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JS writes:

Everyone claims they’ll never forget 9/11 and maybe that’s true (at least for them in their lifetimes) but it seems like today is the day that Pearl Harbor has officially been forgotten, doesn’t it? Nothing on the news this morning.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 07, 2007 06:52 PM | Send