Remembering Pearl Harbor, December 7

REMEMBER PEARL HARBOR

© 1941
Lyrics: Don Reid, Sammy Kaye, Music: Don Reid

History in ev'ry century
Records an act that lives forevermore.
We'll recall, as into line we fall
The thing that happened on Hawaii's shore

Let's remember Pearl Harbor
As we go to meet the foe
Let's remember Pearl Harbor
As we did the Alamo.

We will always remember
how they died for Liberty
Let's remember Pearl Harbor
And go on to victory.

This writer, world traveler, committed-and-convinced Christian, while speaking before a pro-life group, said, "This former embryo is speaking for other embryos. This old soldier, now speaking for those in uniform, who gave their life, and never had the opportunity to grow old."

It was a Sunday afternoon. This eleven-year-old boy, sitting in the "fire room" (the one room in most country homes which was heated), was sitting by my grandfather's old Silvertone radio, when the news came that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor. Of course I quickly announced to the others in the house that Pearl Harbor had been attacked. But then, as now, my own relatives never thought I knew what I was talking about.

But Jesus, said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house.

Mark 6:4

How important it is to motivate and honor members of your own family. If you are not going to toot the horn of your own "kinfolk," who is going to toot their horn? I often wondered how many degrees I must earn, how much money I must make, how many honors, for my own kinfolk to give me any recognition whatsoever. I tell all parents to talk of their ancestors to encourage their own children. I have listened for years, but never heard a relative say one good thing about my military service or success in any endeavor. If I had been a criminal and spent my life in jail, they would probably visit me. I could count on my fingers the members of my family who have ever been in my house.

What's more radical than this thinking? Have you ever considered the fact that heterosexual couples produce children, who they obviously love. They go through all the fretful times of child rearing. Yet, even though their children have been taught good manners at home, taken to church and Sunday school-- where they learn the basics of decent living, they will send the same precious children, their offspring, DNA of their own ancestry, to a public school where every profane sin of the imagination is a reality. They hear every profanity. Their eyes are opened to every evil image. Their faith is challenged by atheist teachers.

Unbelievable. Parents sacrificing many comforts, good times, to educate sons and daughters, which they, often reluctantly, send into the military services. Can one even imagine a sensitive boy or girl subjected to the horrors of present-day warfare. During the Civil War, a war of neighbor against neighbor, a war in which many of the wounds were inflicted by swords and bayonets, 84% of the deaths were caused by disease. How well I remember my own mother going from bedroom to bedroom in our drafty old farmhouse, and reaching under each quilt to see if the feet were warm. Think of the mothers of those Civil War warriors, knowing that their sons were laying on the ground, often in the rain and other weather. During the Civil War, the only food of the warriors was cold salt pork (at my home we called this fatback) and hard flour or corn bread (bread made with just water, and flour or cornmeal).

Of course military services were better on December 7, 1941 and even better today (I speak of clothing, meals, sick care). However, death and disease are still part of the military service. Is there a person alive who actually believes that any young sensitive military type can recover from seeing one of his friends blown to bits by an IED (improvised explosive device)? Or children killed by bombs, shells, or fire on the warfront?

Even at the time of the Civil War, those in battle realized the manhood and supernatural decency of opposing forces. Often, between battles, someone from the south would walk out to a stump and place a bag of tobacco on the stump. Then a man from the north would come out, take the tobacco, and replace it with a bag of coffee. This was the humanity of warfare.

Perhaps the attack on Pearl Harbor was not a sneak attack-- as portrayed then. We know how stupidly we accepted the Gulf of Tonkin story, the impossibility of the 9/11 story, and so it goes. Those responsible for the trespass of treason will account to a power far greater than anything on this earth. In the meantime, we bask in the knowledge that there will ever be men and women, in spite of all differences, who can demonstrate the love of the one who created all of us. It is remarkable that many WW2 veterans, who survived the Pearl Harbor attack, now have their cremated ashes, in urns, buried in the bottom of the ships that went down. The soldier-warrior, short life or long life, always chooses burial in uniform, alongside his comrades.