Those who have known me a while, know that December 7th is a day of special meaning to me. I have a very real and meaningful connection to the day. Not because I was part of what happened on December 7, 1941, but because of what I know about some who were connected to that day.
I believe that all boys have two kinds of men in their lives, great men and others. This is not a good/bad determinant, but rather an impact determinant. The great men in a boy's life have deep and lasting impact on the boy, they form things inside them that are everything about the man that boy will become. I am not educated enough to know whether anyone else believes this or has studied it, but it matches up to what I have observed in my whole life.
One of the great men of my life, my grandfather Harry, made December 7th important to me. He was 4F, and did not serve in the war. (And by the war, I mean WWII. That will always be THE WAR to me, as it impacted so much of my family and the folks who shaped me.) However, his younger brother did serve in the Pacific. William was injured three times as the Allies took the Pacific back from the Japanese. He drove bulldozers building airstrips and was injured as a result of doing his duty.
Lots of people got injured and worse in that war, but what made it viceral to me is that what happened to William was a direct response of what happened on Pearl Harbor. He was never right after the war. He was a drunk and not so nice a man after the war. I don't know all that he did, or failed to do. I do know that William was not someone I would ever go anywhere with, he was not right. But, my Pop remembered William as he was as his younger brother. Before the war happened.
They survived the Depression, they were just kids. Inhumanity and war stole something that was good and meaningful in my grandfather's eyes. He was a cause and effect kind of man, and he clearly saw the effect from the cause, in the case of Pearl Harbor. I won't say he hated the Japanese, but there were no Asians to my Pop, just all Nips. I don't condone it, but I know where it came from.
He saw the damage and the outcome caused by the war. He knew hundreds of people that served in the war, not just his brothers. I know/knew hundreds of people that served in the war. If you are over 40, you did too. That is how much of the country mobilized. So, I do not isolate things down to just one person's experience, or the outcome to one family.
But, Pop would not often talk about the war, or the outcome to his family and world. I have always been a history bug, and I asked lots of questions. But, when he would speak about it, it was clear it was personal to him. He took it to heart that planes and pilots from another place came and killed Americans. And then Americans had to go to places we would never own or go back to, and kill thousands of those people to make it certain that this did not happen again. His brother's piece of that was very meaningful to my grandfather.
However, he never counted it as equal. He always left me feeling that what the war stole from his brother, what it did, would never be able to be repaid. There would always be a deficit. Bad things happen as a result of doing the right thing. He told me that more than once, in more than one way. But the right thing never justified the bad things. It was sometimes unavoidable, sometimes necessary, but never an equal sum.
So, why does Pearl Harbor mean so much to me? It means what it does because the outcome of doing the right thing after that event will never be an equal sum. And now, today, while some of the participants are still alive, I have watched 3 hours of news this morning already, and not a mention has been made. The world quickly forgets. That is just how it is. However, it is not right.
We will soon face a day where there are no longer any left that were personally part of the struggle. I dread that day, because I have a deep and abiding respect for what that generation accomplished. I have been in the military, I know what it was that they did, how they did it, and the effort and sacrifice that it was. I know that they did it with grace and humility, and that all of them came home profoundly different. It left none of them unscarred. Yet, they created the America we have, which is vastly different than prior to the war. Mostly, from a social equality standpoint, I believe the scars of the war drove this country to the progress we have made.
There is nothing that we can do to repay them. There is nothing they would ask for, save respect and to be remembered as good men and women. Most don't care a bit if you know they were in the military. Most won't tell you a thing about their experience. But, they are very proud of being American, very proud of being part of a greater cause, and still very much willing to do anything for their country. It shines out of them, and fills them.
That is what makes it important to me, because it is important to them, and I will never be able to repay what they are owed by me. It is not an equal sum. So, I ask for some of your prayer time, or meditation time, or consideration for these men and women. They would not ask for themselves. They would not say they deserved it, but they would still fight to their death for you. And some of them old boys are probably still bad to the bone. My money will always be on them.
I love you all.
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