Most Americans have just finished Thankgiving with or without family who voted the wrong way, but none the less there are a great many things we as Americans can be thankful for, and looking forward to Christmas and the new year it should be a happy holiday season for most Americans, I know it will be for me. I cannot help but think what the holiday season would be like if suddenly the breaking news would be that my country had been attacked by a foreign nation and 2,402 Americans were killed in less than two hours, and 1,143 lay dying or injured. What would my holiday season be like if I had to face this kind of news. Unfortunately, there are few left today that can tell us what it was like to hear on the radio that the Imperial Japanese Navy, attached the United States at around seven in the morning on December 7, 1941. The attack was perpetrated to destroy Americas seventh naval fleet anchored in Pearl Harbor Hawaii. It happened 83 years ago, there were no televisions, cellphones, no internet, no social media, all they knew for sure was that the radio said the United States had been attacked without warning. One can only imagine just how scared most Americans were. As the various stories emerged the carnage at Pearl Harbor spread across the nation, many believing that the Japanese were invading the Hawaiian Islands and moving to invade the United

States west coast. There is a dozen or so books written about the attack on Pearl Harbor, and movies that describe the events that Sunday morning, but there are only about 24 Americans still alive that were there when the attack took place. The only survivor of the Battleship Arizona Lou Conter died at 102 years old and so we Are losing those who can tell us what it was like, how terrible it was, and how uncertain the future of the United States appeared to be. The significance of Pearl Harbor probably does not mean much to most Americans today, although it should. It is the foundation of the Second World War, a war so horrific as to threaten the very existence of mankind. It taught us how to take human life with weapons and technology so destructive it is barely imaginable even to this day, but there is another side to Pearl Harbor, why did it happen? Could it have been prevented? Understanding Pearl Harbor, you might say is essential to our future as a nation, knowing that we are a gentler nation that values human life although we seem confused at times that we are not after all God but his children instead. In 1941 Nazi Germany was waging war against most of Europe, Japan was itself looking at world conquest and had allied with Germany. The United States had remained neutral and accommodating with an administration that appeared weak, and passive.

Does any of this sound familiar? Does it sometimes feel like we are repeating the past again? In only four years we find the world in two wars, and some say at the brink of World War III. History is a valuable tool, and without it you might as well be blind. If you have no idea where you have been you can hardly expect to know where you are going. There is not a single nation in all human existence that has survived with a weak and passive posture, not one. If you can find one, it would only be because someone of strength is standing behind them, so they don’t count. Imagine if the Japanese had realized the annihilation that would come to their people because of the attack on Pearl Harbor, do you suppose the Japanese would have attacked the United States in the first place? Had the United States been seen as a nation of determination rather than appeasement would WWII have happened at all? It may be just a short time, and all memories of Pearl Harbor might be lost, we don’t teach it anymore unless you’re lucky enough to have a family that remembers. There are two generations that have now passed that know very little about the lessons learned at Pearl Harbor. Most Americans know of the concept of “peace through strength” but only a handful remember what it was like when we thought we didn’t need it.