Pearl Harbor, Eighty Years Ago Today

Imagine if you will it is eighty years ago, you just turned eighteen, are fresh out of high school, and you decided like so many at the time that you weren’t college material, so you chose to enlist in the Navy with a handful of your buddies.

The year is 1941, it is the beginning of the summer, and there is relative peace in your world.  You are aware of the rumblings of the escalating skirmishes in Europe via newsreels at the movies and from sitting around the family radio, and you might have been aware that there were serious discussions going on in DC with the Japanese, but that seems almost like another planet away, your hormones are raging, and while you’ll miss your family and that sweet gal down the street, the Navy offers adventure and a chance to see something different than Main St. in Podunk, USA.

Fast forward a few months to the end of August.  You finished basic training, and except for one of your buddies, you all got assigned and are on your way to the sweetest duty in the Navy.  The US Pacific Fleet in the Hawaiian Islands, which meant tropical sunsets, liberty on the beach, girls, fun, and…Pearl Harbor.

For the next three months, it was everything and more than you had hoped for, and the one friend who was stationed stateside was the brunt of lots of good-natured ribbing because of the fun he was missing out on.

And then it happened.  You and three of the guys you enlisted with were on shore leave for the weekend and decided to get up early on Sunday to do some fishing.  The boat was ready and waiting, and you were in your car on the way for a day of fun.  

Suddenly, at 7:55 am, you heard what sounded like an explosion coming from the direction of the harbor, then another, and another, and then you noticed the sky was full of smoke and flames, and full of planes that weren’t ours with their guns blazing.  A peaceful day of fishing just turned really ugly and all the rumblings you heard before and your recent training just got very real.

You were “only” five miles from your ship; however your adrenaline is pumping, you are dodging bombs and other cars, as well as sporadic strafing from enemy planes in the city streets, getting nauseous from the smells of everything burning and the sights of people dying in the streets everywhere you looked, the five miles seemed like 500, and suddenly you envied your friend who was stationed stateside.

By the time you zigzagged your way through the vicious attack with death and destruction and people screaming in terror all around, and got within running distance of your ship, you saw it ablaze and sinking at its pier.  You told your buddies that it was time to make a run for it and try to fight back, but when you turned back to make sure they heard you, you saw through the swirling, choking smoke that the two in the back seat were dead and your friend in the front passenger seat was clinging on to his shredded arm and his life, and was going into shock.  At that point, you mustered what little sensibility you had left and started screaming for a MEDIC.  You held your friend and frantically tried to stop the bleeding while screaming through the smoke, tears, and horror for help, only to watch his eyes go cold as he drifted off into Eternity.

You may or may not have believed in God and Heaven before that morning, but you certainly got served a huge taste of hell, and in an instant, you became a man and a hardened warrior.  You swore to everything you held dear that if you somehow managed to survive this hellish nightmare, you friends will not have died in vain, and you would fight until the enemy was beaten and beaten hard.

In the next few days, while ships still smoldered in the harbor, men and women were still dying in the makeshift hospitals, and the sounds of entrapped men banging on pipes could still be heard, hundreds of thousands more lined up across the nation to join the fight.

America was at war and all bets were off.

For those who haven’t been taught or don’t understand history; with just a few adjustments and some different players, we in America are on the cusp of another devasting war.  We had our modern “Pearl Harbor” on 9/11, however I believe we haven’t seen the last of such attacks.  

In less than a year we have gone from a respected and feared nation to the wolves scratching at our doors, Russia is about to attack the Ukraine, China continues to build up their military and waiting with a grin on their face while we continue to fund that build up, North Korea has been more or less silent of late which is alarming, and Iran is looking to attack our only ally in the Mideast while the current administration does very little beyond trying to force useless mandates down our throats and ensure our military is in lockstep with “big gay”.

The war clouds are gathering rapidly and the signs are everywhere.  Don’t start or end your days without your spiritual umbrellas, and don’t be surprised if we wake up one morning soon and witness another huge taste of hell, only without men and women like those from the Greatest Generation who lost 2403 of their friends and family members that day.

God help us…