Pearl Harbor 75 years later

[HOOKED ON HISTORY]

Today December 7 2016 I was reading a book while eating lunch as I often do. The waitress inquired about what I was reading & my intrest in terms of subject .
I replied "history " & had a thought. I asked her if she knew the significance of todays date.
She did not. I asked if they had mentioned Pearl Harbor in history class to which she replied they had not though she seemd to have some vague notion of where it was.
The story of Peral Harbor is such a perfect lesson in the results of complacency & the power of forgivness how can a child graduate high school not nowing the significance of 12/07/1941.
It seems to me the ultimate infamy is the failure of our education system.

Pearl Harbor 75th Commemoration

Information

Warning: This is a relatively older thread This discussion is older than 360 days. Some information contained in it may no longer be current.

[browningautorifle]

I mention many of these historic dates through the year to younger people, Dec 7th isn't the only one they don't know...sad too...

[HOOKED ON HISTORY]

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
George Santayana, The Life of Reason, Volume 1, 1905
US (Spanish-born) philosopher (1863 - 1952)

[browningautorifle]

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it

And we see lots of that now...

[HOOKED ON HISTORY]

Indeed. And I fear we are about to rinse & repeat as well.

[Flying10uk]

It does seem astonishing if the history of the unprovoked Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour isn't taught in U.S. schools and it would be interesting if anyone could provide an explanation for this if true. I believe that the history of the Holocaust is now taught in British schools which is good. However, in recent years I have noticed that there are a few middle aged British people about who don't seem to know that Germany was about to invade the U.K. in 1940 and or think that the U.K. would be perfectly pleasant place to live if the Nazis had taken control.

[cipherk98]

Perhaps more disappointing than forgetting it is that when the paper mentioned it today they called it a "pre-emptive strike". Perhaps in the mind of the Japanese at the time, but not to the Americans then and not in the eyes of history today.

[CINDERS]

We learnt of the ANZAC's at school and the AIF I remember 2 prophetic statements from the day 7th Dec ~ Roosevelt ~ The 7th of December as a day of infamy, Yamamoto ~ I fear we have awoken a sleeping giant.

In reply to HOH #1 I stood on the Arizona (BB-39) memorial in 1990 as a young 33 y/o whilst holidaying in Hawaii it was on my must do list no options accepted.
All I can say it was a very sobering experience to see the hulk beneath the water knowing that so many young men perished in a god awful way in the dark and the cold water as the ship sank if they were not killed outright by the blast of the munitions going up. Then you get to that beautiful marble wall with the 1100+ names on it and I can tell you it was haunting and so very very sad it was rather an unsettling experience for me. May they forever "Rest In Peace" knowing the world has not forgotten them.

(If the mods pull this part I understand)
And excuse me I am not being critical but I found it confusing at the same time there were Japanese tourists flocking over the memorial I know the years have passed but the sheer irony of it all just perplexed me I felt like asking one of them why they were here but refrained, I was there because America was our Allie and helped us in N.G even when the U.S armed services were stretched to the limit.
The passage of time has probably healed allot of the animosity over the event and the world for the most part is a better place than it was from Sept 1939 ~ August 1945 you just have to wonder what they teach in the Japanese schools about that day Dec 7th 1941...................

[Paul S.]

History is one of my passions. Plainly, it is our "human family's" story.

Events that occurred long before I was born created the world in which I live and the way I live. Remember too, that historical events were the life experiences of our ancestors. I know that one of my ancestors died in the Battle of Flodden, another died in the Tower of London after the English Civil War having been on the losing side, another was an indentured servant, and another migrated during the Potato Famine. My grandfather fought in Second Ypres in 1915, my father was serving overseas in the army in 1941, I lived during the Cold War, and I remember events that happened during my youth - John Glenn orbiting earth for the first time, the Kennedy assassination, Harold Holt's disappearance, and so many more. Over the last 50 years, I fought in Vietnam, Saigon fell, the Berlin Wall fell, Iraq I & II, 9-11, 7-7, family members, including my second oldest granddaughter, have had active service in the Persian Gulf with the RAN or in Afghanistan with the Australian Army. All these things have shaped me, and as I said, the world I live in.

In no small way, these events and all history have shaped the world my - our - grandchildren and their children will know for decades and even to the end of time. To know the past is to know the future. The flip side of that is that if one is ignorant of the past he looses sight of the future.

That is why I believe Pearl Harbor Day should be a national day of remembrance for the U.S. so that its people are never ever deluded into believing that isolationism is their protection and they are never again caught unprepared.

[JimF4M1s (Deceased)]

Visiting Pearl Harbor is a sobering experience. History and heartbreak. I have been there a few times and each visit I spend a whole day at the memorial and the USS Missouri (BB-63).