HOW could it have happened? Pearl Harbor and its awful treachery and death, is one of the worst defeat ever suffered by the U.S. It is a tragic story of how courage and ingenuity move upon the smoldering wreckage of towering explosion, monstrous ships moaning as they died, young sailors trapped in steel hulks.
On a day that they thought more than usual about wartime sacrifices, the infamous attack happened so unexpectedly, so brutal and chaotic — and killed 2,400 Americans and drew the U.S. in World War II. That event still has an emotional grip on much of the American public, struggling to understand what happened — and no one wants to forget, almost 78 years later.
When the Americans had cut of Japan’s oil supply, Admiral Yamamoto (Mako), a brilliant Harvard-educated warrior, saw no other recourse, but to launch a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor where more than 100 ships and about more than half of the entire Pacific fleet were anchored.
On Sunday, December 7, 1941 at 7:55 a.m., the Japanese unleased 183 planes aimed not only at the ships on Pearl Harbor; but at all military installations at Oahu. Aged survivors interviewed in TV, drew sobs as they narrated the sneak bombing.
It was not a drill as the place came high and came in waves in formation of twos and threes. Past the mist ringed purple mountains winging toward their targets, one after the other, in rapid succession, swooping through the clouds, as they drove, circled and hovered. They made run after run, delivering their loads, sucking life from the air, and creating nerve jangling cacophonies as they attacked, strafe pursuing manifest destiny with fanatical dedication.
“On that day that will in live infamy…” President Roosevelt said.
On any given time that a tribute to that nation’s military, nobody stands taller than WW II veterans. Feeling proud but forgotten, battle scarred, fighting age and illness; they embody poignant messages of duty, honor and undying love, heroism and sacrifice.
They helped define what it was to be an American — “not about race, or the color of ones skin, but about the manner you serve your country.”
I was encouraged to expand my thoughts on WW II by reading the works of William Machester, Tom Brokaw, Ben Bradlee and Stewar Aesop.
The soldier
Kind people, soldiers are. He is respectful son, an affectionate father, a faithful husband, an honest citizen who loves his country; and accepts it as a duty to defend it. He wears his dog tag, with a religious medal, on his proud neck, carries a snap shot of his aging parents, or wife and his children, if not a sweetheart he left behind.
To understand a soldier’s life is to find out what he’s looking for. When he kills another man, who would kill him in his turn, which makes it useless. Pity is a word that has no meaning in war, it is a simple as, “you’ve got a gun, he’s got a gun” and “you shoot and he shoots.” The quicker one hits his target and when he kills you, it is as if you killed him. When reporters describe people dying in encounters, are you helping abolish war?
What makes a man choose to be a soldier?
Very often, he is young, looking for excitement, to shake him out of boredom or for a purpose that he did not have before.
We see photographs of soldiers with faces blank with sadness and resignation convince themselves that they kill in the name of the justice and freedom. What justice, I’d like to ask young soldiers, with so much longer life to live. Instead of coming into the world, to die at twenty in an encounter; you come into this world to die in bed, when you’re old, where around there are green trees, clear rivers, and singing children.
Instead, this cult of killing and being killed. Why has no one ever explained why killing to steal is a sin, but killing if you’re wearing a uniform is the height of glory?
War, it is said, is basically something structured in which armed people shoot at armed people.
But why do we accept war, like some inevitable evil?
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E-mail Mylah at [email protected].
