68 years ago today Pearl Harbor was attacked. 2,388 people were killed. For that generation Pearl Harbor is what 9/11 is to my generation. I wonder how long it is until we forget about 9/11 as well. I hope we remember before then because if we forget history we are forever doomed to make the same mistakes.
The attack on Pearl Harbor led us into WWII and into some of the darker parts of American History. Unfortunately we forget the Japanese American internment. Over 100,000 Japanese Americans removed from their homes and sent to live in camps. I remember when I was little I asked my mom if they did that to people of German descent during the war, like our family. The only figures I could find online are not reliable or confirmed but range maybe around 10,000 German Americans were interned in camps. Nowhere near the number of Japanese Americans who suffered the same fate. I guess German Americans blend into the foliage a little better. Including my family as none of them were sent to live in camps.
I do have to add that my second generation German descent maternal Grandfather was Navy in the Pacific Theatre and my Canadian born paternal Grandfather was Army in the European Theatre. Unfortunately any stories my Grandpa Howard had of his experiences in the Navy are with him in the next life but I have heard some of the stories from my Grandpa Torgerson’s Army unit. And I will never forget those stories. Someday I will make it to Europe and I will stand outside of a Nazi Concentration camp and I will remember those stories.
Let us not forget the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I have been to Hiroshima and while I cannot be a judge on whether the decision to drop the bombs was right or wrong I can say that it was horrifying. I can say that I wish the decision had never had to be made. That the world was never put into such a position that the only option was to cause such destruction. In all aspects of any war I guess that’s true.
My point is not to say that any war is right or wrong or fought for the wrong or right reasons. Let’s just not forget the horrors and tragedies of war. And not to forget that the point is to stop these things from happening again.
December 7th December 7, 2009
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