OK, before I get too serious, I need to plug a big local sporting event that you probably don’t know about. State High’s Boys Ice Hockey team (6-2) is playing a huge game today at 7pm at the PSU Ice Rink against one of the top teams in the WPIHL, the Seneca Valley Raiders.
They have already beaten perennial Western PA powerhouses Mt. Lebanon, North Allegheny and Pine Richland. So if you are looking for something different this Thursday night, come cheer on the Little Lion Icers!
Now, onto a subject that’s sure to raise a few eyebrows.
REMEMBER PEARL HARBOR!
Let’s get this out in the open right now. I am not a war monger. I hate the thought of our citizens dying and being crippled for life. I am also not naïve enough to believe we cannot be constantly on guard for the next threat to our way of life in this country. I am humbled by the courage and commitment of our service men and women and I am indebted to them for the sacrifices that they make every day in defense of this land.
“A DATE WHICH WILL LIVE IN INFAMY”
Dec. 7 came and went on campus, no differently than any other day it seemed. The Daily Collegian’s front page reported which bowl game we would attend and that a sorority lost its charter. But there wasn’t one mention of the significance of the date in this country’s history.
It isn’t just any other day in December or just any other day of the year in my mind. From as young as I can remember it was a warning that we never become complacent and that we remain diligent in being prepared to face threats to our national security. It’s a date that is starting to fade in people’s memory because we are quickly losing our World War II veterans every day. I am determined not to let that happen if I can help it.
I consider myself a bit of a history buff and I only too often wish I had more time to read the many books I would like to about World and American History. I grew up in the era of war movies featuring the likes of John Wayne, and yes I realize they were the sanitized versions of war, but they led to a passion for reading about history and so I had a particular fascination with World War II history.
REMEMBER PEARL HARBOR
How many of you know that right in our back yard in Boalsburg, at the Pennsylvania Military Museum, two of the 14-inch main guns of the Battleship USS Pennsylvania are displayed?
How many kids today know of her history of battle and that she fired more rounds than any other ship in naval history?
That she was damaged in the surprise attack that fateful day in dry dock while undergoing upgrades in preparation for the defense of our nation?
That she would be repaired and would sail again to help us defeat an enemy that struck without warning and thrust us into a war that we came very close to losing in its first year if it were not for the heroics of our brave soldiers and sailors and the resolve of our people.
We owe it to those who died on the “date which will live in infamy,” as President Roosevelt so eloquently described it.
We owe it to our children and their children so that we are not duped once again into a false sense of security as British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlin was when he believed the lies of Adolph Hitler.
REMEMBER PEARL HARBOR
So on Monday night, when I usually watch football games, I instead spent the night as I usually do on days like Veterans Day, Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, and Pearl Harbor Day. I watched the History channel and I got out some of my old books to page through.
“Dec. 7, 1941, The Day The Japanese Attacked Pearl Harbor” and “At Dawn We Slept” both by Gordon Prange.
I learned from a show on the Military Channel that the first shot fired at Pearl Harbor was actually by one of our destroyers, the USS Ward. The shot sunk a Japanese midget submarine that had sneaked into our defensive area outside the harbor. That in all five midget subs were in the area…..three were sunk, one got away, and one was found washed ashore and that Ensign Sakamaki, of the Imperial Japanese Navy sub fleet, became the first prisoner of the war in the Pacific captured by our troops.
Here are a few websites to visit in case any of this history interests you:
My children are growing up in a changed world where the Soviet Union is no longer and the Berlin Wall has fallen and where Japan is an ally. My son went to daycare and elementary school with a young boy from Japan, Daiki, and he cried when Daiki’s family moved back to Japan in third grade. He still has some of the letters that they wrote back and forth until the friendship faded with the distance. In many ways we are a smarter people, more diverse and open minded than ever. But there is still evil in the world and there are still enemies lurking around the globe.
Americans had vowed for years that we would never let another Pearl Harbor happen again. We pledged that we would be ready to thwart all threats to our homeland. We know there are people out there who hate us for a number of reasons and maybe just because we are Americans. We seemed invincible, impregnable and we went to sleep knowing that we were safe from foreign invaders.
Then one bright sunny morning on Sept. 11, 2001, it happened again. Except this time it was an enemy unlike any we had ever seen and it was more horrible than anything I could have imagined in my lifetime. A number of my former hockey players were working in the financial district in NYC. Cam Brown barely escaped with his life as he worked in the WTC. When I spoke to him later that evening you could hear the fear in his voice and sense the sheer horror that he had survived.
I visited “ground zero” where I had once had the opportunity to dine at the Windows of the World restaurant in the WTC. I fought back tears as I saw the complete destruction as the result of the unprovoked attack on OUR soil, on our mainland, on the very heart of the American way of life.
I don’t wish another war upon this world. There are too many going on as it is. But I also don’t want to see us get caught with our britches down again as well. We need a strong military for this very reason. We need citizens who will defend this great country. We need strong leaders both in government and in the military who will provide for the safety of our people.
I hope like all of you that we can find peaceful solutions to the various conflicts we have among nations so we don’t have to send our sons and daughters to war. But if history has taught us anything, we had better do our best to be on the alert. To watch for the warning signs of discontent around the globe. To have enough of our citizen’s ready to defend this land so that freedom will live and our people won’t ever suffer another Pearl Harbor or 9-11.
REMEMBER PEARL HARBOR, REMEMBER 9-11.
