The Beginning: December 7, 1941

"Yesterday, on December 7th, 1941- a date which will live in infamy- the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan..." and with those words Franklin D. Roosevelt began his speech to the American people. It was short, to the point, no flowery words; a listing of the deeds perpetrated at Oahu, other locations in Hawaii, and islands throughout the Pacific. This speech is remembered for those first few words, and every year, for over seven decades, this one line has become synonymous with the date. However, it is the end of the speech that has always grabbed my attention most. "Always will we remember the character of the onslaught against us.

No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.

I believe I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost, but will make very certain that this form of treachery shall never endanger us again.

Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory and our interests are in grave danger.

With confidence in our armed forces - with the unbounding determination of our people - we will gain the inevitable triumph - so help us God.

I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, Dec. 7, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese empire." This moment was so much more than a remembrance of an invasion and the destruction, it was the beginning.

I often consider the vast discrepancies in maturity and the drive toward goals this "Greatest Generation" has with the following generations. My Grandad was a young teenager at the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor. It was a couple more years before he could sign up with the Navy, his parents going with him to co-sign because he was still at minor. He was stationed in the Pacific, specifically Hawaii. At seventeen, he was convicted of his need to be part of the war.
   

                  

I don't know much about what he did or where he went. Like most of this generation, he was quiet on this subject and I never felt comfortable asking questions. There are two photos of this time, one with him and buddy (he's on the left in the photo below) and another with a Hawaiian girl in a grass skirt and a bikini top (which the memory is hazy and seems a bit mythical because no one talked about that one, especially Grandma... and that photo has suspiciously disappeared to time). There is a beauty in the naivete in wanting to be part of something, to be patriotic, to go to war, to be brave, and then there is the devastating reality. Few stories were shared with his family. There's the one where he lost a month's pay for trying his hand at Black Jack and losing spectacularly, so much that he refused to even touch a deck of cards for the rest of his life, and there's the one told many times, with resounding clarity, of the time he found he was allergic to pineapple and experienced a nasty case of hives. He was told that if it happened again, he would be sent home. The allure of bravery having faded in the face of what was real, he went to a pineapple field and waded in it, hoping for the hives. I never could picture my incredibly skinny, six foot, two inch Grandad rolling around in pineapples-- and how do you 'wade' in pineapples?--, but I always felt his desperation in the story when he told it. The story always ended with sigh, those pineapples didn't work a second time around. He never got the hives. He never got to go home.

Pearl Harbor was a starting point. It brought the United States into a multi-front war, with casualties totaling over one million American lives. So when this day rolls around every year, I see it as more than just the event of the Japanese invasion of Hawaii. I see it's impact and consequences weaving down through the generations, including mine.