And Where were You Last Saturday?

 I am one of those people who has trouble remembering dates, and, more specifically, what I was doing on a certain date.

If I were ever to be interrogated by law enforcement, I would be in deep doodoo.

Take last Saturday, for instance.  That date I remember.   Can't tell you what I was doing on that date but I know why the date is significant to me.  It was Dec. 7, and its significance is Dec. 7, 1941, the day the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.

That date led to a lot of introspection and the making of a list of four dates important to my generation.   I posted that list on Facebook, and then followed up with my reasons why.

Here on Blogspot, I will post each of the four dates and my reasons.  

Here's the first:

Response One:

 

First, I should establish the parameters of “my generation” and, since it’s mine, I choose those of us born in the 1940s who are included in The Silent Generation and whose parents were in The Greatest Generation, plus the Early Baby Boomers.

 

Those born after—1950s and 1960s and so on, will have names for their generations and might have dates that are significant to them that may differ from mine.

 

Dec. 7, 1941—The Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor

 

Most of Europe, eastern Asia, and North Africa was consumed by war. FDR was fighting to keep the US out of the war.

 

The attack, a horrendous intelligence failure, destroyed much of the US naval fleet and planes based in Hawaii, and propelled the US into declaring war against Japan and, subsequently, into the European fray. 

 

This conflict became known as World War II, as it involved most major countries as well as smaller, remote countries such as Greenland and Iceland, a truly world-wide effect. 

 

While we might not remember the day these events occurred at the time, we eventually grew old enough to understand the importance of the date.   Many of us had relatives who went off to war.

I was two weeks old on Dec. 7, 1941.

 

 

Yesterday and Today: What Lesson Does Pearl Harbor Hold for Us?

Monday, Dec. 7, will mark the day when, seventy-four years ago, the United States was bombed into participating in World War II by a surprise Japanese attack on the U.S. naval fleet in Pearl Harbor.

Pearl Harbor, Wikipedia Commons

Subsequent to that, up to 120,000 residents of Japanese descent were interned in camps in the U.S., ostensibly because they posed a danger to the country if the Japanese succeeded in a suspected plan to invade the West Coast.   History has shown that one of the reasons was actually racism and fear among other Americans.

In Hawaii, where a third of the population (150,000) were Japanese-Americans, only 1200 to 1800 were interned.

Once Japan invaded Alaska’s Aleutian Islands, 880 Aleuts were removed from the war zone in the Aleutian and Pribilof islands for their safety and sent south of Juneau, where they were forced into survival conditions in old canneries.  For most of these Alaskan natives, the culture shock was immense.

Artillery mount, Amchitka Island.   My photo.

Ten per cent of these natives died in the abysmal conditions as they languished for years.   Those who returned to their islands found their homes ransacked and destroyed, often by U.S. troops.

http://www.akhistorycourse.org/images/american/funtercemetary.jpg

These days, the United States again faces threats from within and without.  I am beginning to understand the moral dilemma of our parents’ generation in the face of their fear and suspicion.   We wonder what the "right" course of action is.   How can we allow war refugees into our country and also protect us from infiltrators who mean us great harm?

WWII relics on Amchitka Island.   My photo.

In San Bernardino today, a woman is suffering greatly because she saw things, yet kept quiet for fear of being branded a racist, or of profiling.   Now fourteen people are dead, and many more wounded.

 We have been taught that profiling people because of their ethnicity or religion is somehow bad, that it makes us racist and intolerant.  And yet, our leaders caution us to be vigilant and speak up if we see something suspicious.   If I see someone of a certain ethnicity, perhaps reading from a certain religious book, am I a racist because I surreptitiously look for suspicious bulges under their clothing,  observe their demeanor for anxiety, or look the other way if that person tries to light their shoe on fire? 

I spent a long airplane flight from a dangerous country back to the U.S., seated next to a young man of a certain age who read his ornate Koran the entire trip, and was kind enough to assist me with a carry-on in the luggage bay overhead.

I am also reminded of the Nazis, and later the Stasi (the East German police), and the people of the Soviet Union, whose leaders urged the populace to report suspicious activities.   When their records were later exposed to public examination, it was found that neighbors spied on neighbors, and family members tattled on each other.

People around the world have been hoping peace-minded Muslims would denounce the radical elements in their religion, and a few groups have done that.  But is denouncing enough?   And will it have any effect?   Or will that serve only to make us let down our guard enough for the wolf to attack the flock?

I don’t have the answers to the problems we face today, but I am compelled to keep the past in mind as we try to find our way through a prickly and deadly brier patch.

Aleut cemetery, Amchitka Island.   No Aleuts have lived on Amchitka since WWII.   My photo.