Remember Pearl Harbor

On Monday John pulled up a chair to join the four of us lingering over coffee after breakfast. “Do you know what day this is?”

December 7, Pearl Harbor Day, the anniversary of the Japanese attack which destroyed the U.S. fleet moored at the docks in the harbor at Honolulu, Hawaii. John and I were the only ones at the table who remembered where we were that day. Alma was only six years old and had vague memories of newspaper boys shouting “Extra! Extra!” The other two had not been born.

I have vivid memories of sitting in the back seat of the family car as we drove to the farm and listening to a man on the car radio talking about “Pearl Harbor,” a place I never heard of. The next day I sat at my desk in a science classroom at Daggett Junior High and listened to President Franklin Roosevelt’s velvet voice on the different radio, saying that the world would always remember that “day of infamy.”

Do most Americans know what “infamy” means?

Most people today know of World War II only from movies. Tom Hanks leading his little squad to save Private Ryan. The war in the Pacific? Hmm, maybe they heard something about it. The Japanese? They make Toyotas, those well-built little cars whose competition destroyed our auto industry. Well, it is Detroit’s fault for not doing a better job. That’s the free enterprise system. And Obama is a socialist for trying to save American industry. Right? Japan is our prime ally in the Far East.

Times change. People forget.

In New Mexico I knew several men who survived the Bataan Death March and imprisonment in Japan. The Japanese were brutal to American prisoners. Many died. Some were executed; others tortured and beaten to death. All were starved. The ones I knew were poor Hispanics and Indians who were accustomed to deprivation before the war.

Surprisingly, the former prisoners I knew harbored little resentment toward the Japanese. Their attitude seemed to be, “That was just the way the Japanese were in those days.”

The survivors were simply thankful that they were able to come home. Unlike some Vietnam veterans who were rewarded with seats in Congress, my New Mexico friends did not expect any special treatment because of their suffering. After their long ordeals, they came home to resume their former lives. Many had died; the survivors felt grateful for ordinary jobs, homes, and families.

They are my heroes.