Operation Z commenced without warning at 7:48 a.m., Sunday, December 7, 1941. After the last wave of Japanese aircraft left Pearl Harbor, 2,402 were killed and 1,178 wounded. On this day, every American should be reminded that it is one of the highest civic acts to visit the Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor at least once in their life to pay their respects. I did in 2016.
Certain days provide cringing lessons. We’ve had a few since that harrowing day. The heart-wrenching scenes of the evacuation of the US embassy in Saigon in 1975 would be one. Another would be 9/11. Now, Kabul airport in August of 2021 would qualify as still another. Two of these were at the hands of others while two were the culmination of our own actions. Two rallied the nation to confront the threats. Two were disgraceful and will result in calamitous decades to follow.
Honor the sacrifices, remember the dead, and learn the lessons of history . . . if history isn’t molested in the classroom by a fashionably extremist ideology so it can’t be remembered properly. Remember, but remember well.
RogerG