67 YEARS AGO - TIME MARCHES ON

Not many of those responsible for the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor are alive today, December 7th, 1941. When the attack occurred I was only eight years old – but because of my family’s reaction I remember like yesterday.

The Japanese Navy pilots who carried out the attack on Pearl Harbor would now likely be in their nineties. The famous American Marine ace Gregory “Pappy” Boyington of “Baa Baa Black Sheep” fame, if he were alive today would be ninety-six. The Japanese pilot Masajiro "Mike" Kawato who finally shot down Boynton, if alive would now be eighty-three.

The American and Japanese World War II pilot adversaries met after the war and became close friends. In fact, I met both Pappy Boyington and Kawato at a Chino California Air Show in the mid-eighties. The old pilots had adjoining booths, were joking with each other, and signing books. I have a photo of Pappy Boyington signing his book for my son John.

It was not the Japanese general public, but the Japanese government headed by Prime Minister Hideki “The Razor” Tojo (a supporter of the Nazis on the other side of the globe), and some twenty-eight other major war criminals, who were responsible for Pearl Harbor and the bloody war with Japan. Had Tojo not been executed sixty years ago as a war criminal, he would have been 114 years old on this Pearl Harbor Day 2008.

The point of this: “Remember Pearl Harbor,” even though it happened sixty-seven years ago, Never forget the cost of war.

I’ve looked down from the war memorial at the battleship USS Arizona sunk by the Japanese to the bottom of Pearl Harbor, where American sailors are still entombed in a watery grave. And I confess to mixed emotions on observing young Japanese tourists at the same Pearl Harbor Memorial, looking down at the battleship perhaps sunk by their grandparents.

The fact is, none of us are responsible for the sins of our ancestors. But each and all of us are responsible for the here and now.

Note: The top photo is from a painting depicting the horror of Pearl Harbor Day. The middle photo is of Togo, one of the prime instigators of the attack. The bottom photo shows peaceful Pearl Harbor today, with the Memorial over the sunken USS Arizona. Time marches on.