SIXTY YEARS AGO
Sixty-four years ago, when I was eight years old, I was home in East Los Angeles helping my grandparents (who raised me) decorate our Christmas tree. The family twelve-button free-standing radio was projecting swing music, and Bing Crosby was crooning Christmas music. It was December 7, 1941. Suddenly, the music was interrupted. A terse voice announced the attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii – a place I had never heard of.
The telephone rang. My granddad was a Los Angeles County Deputy Sheriff, and he was put on notice that he might be recalled to work, and to be sure there was gasoline in our Huppmobile. My Uncle Earl and Aunt Ola May drove over to our home in their Nash automobile. Radio news flashes of the destruction and loss of life at Pearl Harbor came one after the other. All of us were scared. We darkened the lights in our home for a “blackout.” It was the beginning of a long and costly war. A war in which my mother enlisted in the Women’s Army Air Corps (WAACs), and served with the 15th Air Force as a Staff Sergeant at Bari, Italy.
On that Pearl Harbor Day, sixty-four years ago, America was attacked by a warmongering faction of the sovereign Empire of Japan. It was, as President Roosevelt correctly described it, “A day that will live in infamy.” We were fighting an easily identifiable enemy. Our enemy wore uniforms. It was like every other war, except in the vast scope of World War II - Japan, Germany, and Italy.
On September 11, 2001, there was another day that will live in infamy. 9/11, as it is called, launched the beginning of what is the equivalent of World War Three. In this new world war, the enemy has no uniform, and is dispersed throughout the world in a number of nations – including our own. The common denominator of this latest enemy is hate and radical (emphasize radical) Islam. It’s not politically correct, but this World War III is, in fact, a religious war – a religious war that has been going on for centuries, according to the enemy’s own timetable, a timetable accelerated by the speed and technology of the 21st Century.
The enemy of World War II is patient, far more patient that America. Consider the time spans between the Olympic Games attack, the first World Trade Center bombing, and the 9/11 last cataclysm tic World Trade Center. Partisan politicians who pander to the impatient who think war can be won like instant soup is made, and starry-eyed peaceniks can debate every aspect of America’s War on Terror (God Bless Freedom of Speech) - but such behavior is dangerous to survival. Without survival, there will be no freedom of speech, or any other freedom in our Bill of Rights.
And so, on this Pearl Harbor Day 2005, “Remember Pearl Harbor” and, please, also "Remember 9/11. "
The telephone rang. My granddad was a Los Angeles County Deputy Sheriff, and he was put on notice that he might be recalled to work, and to be sure there was gasoline in our Huppmobile. My Uncle Earl and Aunt Ola May drove over to our home in their Nash automobile. Radio news flashes of the destruction and loss of life at Pearl Harbor came one after the other. All of us were scared. We darkened the lights in our home for a “blackout.” It was the beginning of a long and costly war. A war in which my mother enlisted in the Women’s Army Air Corps (WAACs), and served with the 15th Air Force as a Staff Sergeant at Bari, Italy.
On that Pearl Harbor Day, sixty-four years ago, America was attacked by a warmongering faction of the sovereign Empire of Japan. It was, as President Roosevelt correctly described it, “A day that will live in infamy.” We were fighting an easily identifiable enemy. Our enemy wore uniforms. It was like every other war, except in the vast scope of World War II - Japan, Germany, and Italy.
On September 11, 2001, there was another day that will live in infamy. 9/11, as it is called, launched the beginning of what is the equivalent of World War Three. In this new world war, the enemy has no uniform, and is dispersed throughout the world in a number of nations – including our own. The common denominator of this latest enemy is hate and radical (emphasize radical) Islam. It’s not politically correct, but this World War III is, in fact, a religious war – a religious war that has been going on for centuries, according to the enemy’s own timetable, a timetable accelerated by the speed and technology of the 21st Century.
The enemy of World War II is patient, far more patient that America. Consider the time spans between the Olympic Games attack, the first World Trade Center bombing, and the 9/11 last cataclysm tic World Trade Center. Partisan politicians who pander to the impatient who think war can be won like instant soup is made, and starry-eyed peaceniks can debate every aspect of America’s War on Terror (God Bless Freedom of Speech) - but such behavior is dangerous to survival. Without survival, there will be no freedom of speech, or any other freedom in our Bill of Rights.
And so, on this Pearl Harbor Day 2005, “Remember Pearl Harbor” and, please, also "Remember 9/11. "
posted by Blogs by Rep Bob Lynn | 12:24 PM
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