December 7, 2010, - 11:45 am
“A Date Which Will Live in Infamy” . . . or Will It?
Sixty-nine years ago, today, on December 7, 1941, America was attacked by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor. We did nothing to merit this attack and were at peace with Japan . . . or so we thought. America hadn’t entered World War II and this brought us in. But 69 years is a long time ago and there are few survivors of the Pearl Harbor bombing left. Some estimates say there are only 3,000 survivors today out of the 60,000 servicemen on the Hawaiian island, that day. Our heroes from that day are dying out. The few that survive are very old, in their ’80s and ’90s. Most sad, the national Pearl Harbor Survivors Association is considering disbanding. Its national convention in Honolulu, this week, may be its last.
2,388 U.S. military personnel were killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. 1,178 American servicemen were wounded. 12 ships were sunk or beached, 9 damaged. We lost 164 aircraft to total destruction, and 159 others were damaged.
And while, on December 8, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared in a speech to Congress that the day before was “a date which will live in infamy,” I’m not so sure. Not only are there few remaining survivors to tell their story, we are a country with kids and 20- and 30-somethings who are dumber and more ignorant than ever. I’d bet real money that a much larger percentage of them know the details of who Kim Kardashian is now “dating” (euphemism) than the details of what happened on Pearl Harbor Day. In ever dumbed down America, skankubines and babymama daughters of quitter governors on dancing shows–both of whose achievements are all based on something every small-brained animal does: having sex–capture America’s attention. History is, well, sooooo yesterday.
Listen to President Roosevelt’s speech, below. I’ve listened to it over the years, several times. FDR identified explicitly, and repeatedly identified the enemy who attacked us: Japan. No Americans were afraid to say it. President Bush never identified the enemy who attacked us on 9/11: Muslims. Barack Obama won’t identify them and is in a heated contest to beat the eight years of Bush Islamo-pandering. More than nine years later, if you dare identify who actually attacked us (again, IT’S. MUSLIMS.), well, Whoopi Goldberg will walk out on you on live national TV . . . garbed in the flashing light shoes of most five-year-olds. Oh, and Joy Behar will walk out on you, too.
Back in the early post-Pearl Harbor attack days, we were resolute. And women (only their gynecologist knows for sure if they are) like Goldberg and Behar (two ugly non-Jews, who’ve taken Jewish names) would be egged and had garbage thrown on them. They’d be pariahs, not multi-millionaire TV show hostesses. But, like I said, America was a smarter, more resolute nation back then. Now, we’re a ship without sails, roaming aimlessly on stormy seas with a crew of misfits and incompetents.
My own personal connection to Pearl Harbor is that my late great-uncle Maurice J. Schlussel, MD, a career Army man, was sent to Pearl Harbor just after the attacks to oversee medical treatment and was appointed the top U.S. Army medical officer over the South Pacific. I had the pleasure of knowing Uncle Maurice. And I know he’d be shocked and disappointed at what America has become now and how little attention is paid to what happened there.
Remember those who died or were otherwise maimed on December 7, 1941. Every year I implore you, my educated and informed readers and friends: let’s not forget our troops courage under fire on Pearl Harbor Day, and the price those who died on that day paid to serve this country. But I fear that when they’re all dead–when all of the survivors are gone–most of our Idiot Nation’s young and future generations will forget. Most of them don’t know what the U.S.S. Arizona was and what happened there.
Because so few of these survivors are left, we must remember for them. We also must remember in place of so many ignorant Americans who don’t remember, never knew, and just don’t care because, “Hey, I have a reality show on E! to watch.”
***
Pearl Harbor survivor and veteran Russell Meyne remembers:
Russell Meyne was sitting down to a plate of pancakes, bacon and eggs in the mess hall at Pearl Harbor’s Hickam Air Base, 2 miles away. He was hoping to revitalize himself after a night of drinking beer with his buddies, celebrating their selection to a group that would be heading to the mainland for flight training.
Suddenly, everything changed.
“The table almost bounced up and down, and all the pots and pans in the kitchen started falling on the floor,” said Meyne, an Army private at the time, now 91 and treasurer of the South Carolina branch of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association. . . .
“We had a front-row seat,” Meyne said.
He says he and a buddy loaded their rifles — it was all they could think to do at the time — and started shooting at a plane that was coming down smoking. He never knew whether he hit the plane, but he says it slammed into a building and killed four people.
None of the members of Meyne’s company was among the 2,402 U.S. servicemembers who lost their lives that day, but he saw what happened to others who weren’t as lucky.
“The guys in the harbor, when they tipped those battleships over and dumped all that oil on the water and the oil caught on fire — oh God, it was a mess,” he said.
Meyne recalls the sight of soldiers running on the airfield, trying to move some of the airplanes as the Japanese planes peppered them with machine-gun fire.
“Man, they just got mowed down like wheat,” he said.
Indeed. And it could happen to America again. Not with enemy warplanes identified by country, but with the larger Islamic enemy from within blowing up more planes or choosing buildings and shopping malls. It did happen again on 9/11. And it will happen again on some future unknown date.
***
From my 2005 coverage of Pearl Harbor Day, I repeat these words from the Memorial:
My brothers lie in state,
In clear waters
Of testimony, their willingness
To answer our Nation’s call.
An angel bends down, whispers in my ear,
Never forget. Never forget.
Honor them. They
Gave their lives for you.
No man hath a greater love.
Do them honor.
And never forget.
Remember Pearl Harbor and the men who gave their lives there in service to America.
Tags: 9/11 Attacks, 911, A Date Which Will Live in Infamy, audio, bombing, FDR, Franklin D. Roosevelet, Honolulu, identifying the enemy, Islam, Islamic enemy, Japanese, Maurice J. Schlussel, Maurice Schlussel, Muslims, Pearl Harbor, Pearl Harbor Day, Pearl Harbor Survivors Association, President Roosevelt, Russell Meyne, speech, video
Thank you Debbie, for a wonderful tribute to our servicemen. I was born two years after Pearl Harbor, and have grown up with a keen interest and fascination of WWII. As a young girl I remember watching all the war movies and we weren’t PC at the time so we heard the true sentiments when our troops and countrymen referring to the Japs, Nips, slanty eyed yellows, and the Gerrys and Krauts. Yeah try that today, and we’d probably be prosecuted for hate speech. Now in movies the Americans are portrayed as a bunch of scumbags and the muslims as poor victims picked on by us.
Not only will Pearl be forgotten, but in even less time so will September 11, 2001. Kinda makes me want to barf.
Davida on December 7, 2010 at 12:11 pm