Pearl Harbor: A Day that will Live in Infamy

Seventy-Four years ago today, we remember "a day that will live in infamy". On the morning of December 7^th 1941, the Imperial Japanese Empire initiated a surprise attack on the U.S. Military Base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The effect was devastating. The Japanese Navy launched aircraft from their carriers in the pacific who dived to attack important military targets in Pearl Harbor and surrounding area. Almost 4,000 Americans were killed and wounded. Heavy damage was inflicted on US ships and aircraft. This day of tragedy changed the lives of all Americans and the history of our nation.  

Those men there suffered indescribable things. George Washington said this about the American Soldiers at Valley Forge. “Naked and starving as they are, we cannot enough admire the incomparable patience and fidelity of the soldiery.” I believe we can say the same about the men that fought during and after the attack of Pearl Harbor. The battles they fought later in the war took courage, sacrifice, valor, honor, and valiance to win. I would have liked to have been there that day and on many other days to come, to talk with the men and ask them why they kept going in those terrible conditions. I would have liked to see their unfailing devotion first-hand. They suffered all this for one principle–liberty. They suffered so that a man can stand on his own two feet and say, “I am free!” This is why I would have liked to have been there–to see their courage and to help grow mine in the fight for Freedom. They did not sacrifice for our liberty just for us to take it for granted. Ronald Reagan declared, “Freedom is never more then one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.” Those men want us to take their stories and do the same as they did. We can become inspired by their sacrifice at Pearl Harbor to take our own action in fighting for freedom.