Dec. 7, 1941.
Dec. 7, 1941.
"A day that will live in infamy."
— President Franklin Roosevelt
Seventy-two years later, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor is fading quickly from living memory. Few survivors remain, their national association disbanded after 70 anniversaries of the event that sealed the U.S. entry into World War II.
The Greatest Generation — men and women who fought across Europe, survived treks through harsh and humid jungles, served aboard ships and in airplanes — are dwindling to the final few. And eventually, their heroism and sacrifice will live only in history books.
For all World War II veterans, for those lost on that unimaginable day, for civilians who endured the atrocities of war and those who didn't, we must remember Pearl Harbor.
Without warning, the attack came. When it was over, four American battleships had been sunk and three damaged. Only one in the harbor came through it all.
The death toll: 2,402 U.S. service members, 57 civilians.
It was only the beginning.
Four years later, 416,000 Americans would be dead in the fighting, 60 million people worldwide including 6 million Jews and others exterminated in Hitler's death camps.
We must remember Pearl Harbor for the immense loss of life, for the victory of freedom over tyranny, for the bravery of those who went into battle in times when technology did not bring their faces and their voices home in real time.
And we must remember Pearl Harbor for another reason.
With Japan as our enemy, the U.S. turned on vast numbers of patriotic Americans, solid citizens, only because of the way they looked.
In all, 110,000 Japanese Americans living in California were taken out of the homes and placed in relocation camps to live out the war.
President Roosevelt supported the action, even encouraged it. An enemy race, it was said. Security risks.
FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover took the opposing view that these Americans of Japanese ancestry, most second generation born in the U.S., were loyal to cause and country.
He was right.
It was a time when emotions trumped Constitutional rights, when America's commitment to human rights was tested and when the country failed.
It was a mistake not to be repeated. And it is one more reason that we must remember Pearl Harbor and what it meant for all Americans.