REMEMBERING: 2 DAYS THAT WILL -- OR SHOULD -- LIVE IN INFAMY FOREVER...

DECEMBER 7, 1941. SEPTEMBER 11, 2001.

Today marks the 75th anniversary of Pearl Harbor. 

Interestingly enough, it might never have happened.  Japan’s first plan was to subdue China and use its natural resources and labor to continue the war.  Once they had done this, their plan was to attack the Soviet Union from the east as Hitler’s Germany advanced from the west.  Since Japan had easily humiliated Russia in the 1905 Russo-Japanese war and were now even stronger, Russia seemed an easy target, one also rich in resources.

But China was proving a far more difficult enemy to subdue and Japan still needed petroleum, rubber and other resources to press their war.  Admiral Yamamoto, who had been a student at Harvard from 1919-1921 and traveled extensively around the United States, was ordered in 1940 to devise an attack on the United States, in order to ensure Japan unencumbered access to the resource-rich South Pacific, Australia and Southeast Asia.

Yamamoto understood that the US would enter the war on the side of our British allies if Japan were to take the British Empire resources it desperately needed.  So he devised a plan to take the fight out of the big dog and, hopefully, the big dog out of the fight, as convincingly as possible.

So on this date, December 7^th, 1941, the enemy that had been planning their surprise attack for more than a year killed some 2,300 men who stood on the decks and in the bellies of 80 ships of the line -- virtually our entire Pacific Fleet.

The day after, Admiral Yamamoto was alleged to have said, "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve." (Actually, no record exists that he ever uttered these words. They are possibly the after-the-fact words of a Hollywood screenwriter since the first time anyone heard them was in 1970, when the actor portraying Yamamoto says them in the movie Tora! Tora! Tora!)

But what is documented is what he said to his Prime Minister, Prince Kanoe: "I can run wild for six months … after that, I have no expectation of success."

Which was chillingly prescient given that six months TO THE DAY later, the Battle of Midway ended with the sinking of four Japanese carriers (leaving them with just two.)  At Midway, 200 of the most experienced Japanese combat pilots met their deaths. (This was more deaths in a single day than they had trained in the entire year prior to Pearl Harbor.)  Their defeat meant the end of Japan's ability to project power across the Pacific all the way to Seattle, San Francisco, or Los Angeles. 

After Pearl Harbor, the citizens of the United States pulled together as never before. Recruiting stations were swamped with young patriots determined to defend our nation. Women rushed to fill jobs vacated by their men at war and Rosie the Riveters began to build the ships and tanks and airplanes we needed to defeat fascism in Europe and in the Pacific.

We honor these men and women with the sobriquet of “The Greatest Generation” and give our generous thanks for their many sacrifices in facing an existential threat to our being, especially on this day.

60 years after the attack on Pearl Harbor, on September 11, 2001, an equally determined and deluded enemy murdered nearly 3000 civilian men, women and children. Did Americans rush to the recruiting stations? Some did.  Most did not.  Yet this was also an attack on Americans, this time in the American homeland, by a vicious enemy intent upon destroying our way of life.  Murdering 3000 was just a prelude for them. 

Did the country pull together to defeat this equally powerful and hateful foe?  Some agreed that a military response was appropriate, some wanted to find and try these murderers in civilian court as if this was merely a typical crime, albeit on a larger scale.  Most placed We Support Our Troops yellow ribbons on their cars, but expected young Americans already serving in the military to deal with this issue. 

15 years later, more than three times as long as our nation’s involvement in World War II, we are still “dealing with it.”  We have tracked down and retaliated against thousands of those who financed, planned, and cheered the cowardly, vicious attack by a fanatical bunch of Islamist thugs. 

But along the way we created Rules of Engagement which have limited our efforts to bring this war closer to a conclusion.  Our leadership called the most vicious of these thugs “the junior varsity team,” implying there was no need to spend time or treasure on them.  We created Red Lines that no one dare cross – until they stepped across them with impunity.

In World War II, we knew who our allies were and we knew who the enemy was and we treated our friends with respect and accommodation, our enemies with peace through superior firepower and the moral integrity that comes from fighting for a cause greater than ourselves. 

Today, however, our “diplomacy” is derided by our remaining allies as ludicrous appeasement and as proof that we are a paper tiger by the club of autocrats that would destroy us in a moment if only they could.

Even though crippled  by equivocating yo-yo leadership and by the inevitable weariness that accompanies goals left unfinished, our young Americans in the military have responded with honor, with strength, with compassion, and, where needed, with a vengeance. 

But many Americans still do not understand or are unwilling to accept that this enemy is every bit as fascist, fanatical and committed to our destruction as were the Japanese and their allies in World War II.  They stand at our doorstep today and would slit our collective throats if we let our guard down for even a moment.

This is an important day of remembrance.  I'd like to say thank you to the boys and girls of 1941, 1942, 1943, 1944, and 1945.  I’d also like to say thank you to the boys and girls of 2001-2016.  With better leadership and clearer direction and focus, they will make us all proud.  Pearl Harbor was attacked 75 years ago today.  

No one will care 75 years from now who was on the cover of People Magazine, the rap star of the moment, or someone who is today famous for being famous.  But they will care, and remember, whether Americans in 2016 were able to muster the moral courage that Americans did in 1941. I hope and pray we do not disappoint these future generations.

(c) JL Shaefer, 2016