Dec. 7th comming up. who can remember ???

History is a great teacher, unfortunately, not many people pay any attention to it. Especially politicians.
 
Not born until 1949, but we have the JFK assassination and the 9/11 terrorist attacks to remember always. Today's generation has no idea of the ordeal of WW2..An ordeal that was not a sure win on our side but took real guts and prayers to rid the world of a real menace, that could easily have changed the free world for good! A threat that we again are facing but this time with people that spend all day long looking at their phones, God help us!
 
Very true Ron. You know one thing that gets me is when people say ' oh it will never happen these days' I'm sure throughout history right back to the Romans they said the same thing...
 
I was 4 1/2 and remember the air raid drills and PT boats on the Hudson river patrolling. Also the Watervliet Arsenal was only 4 miles away which they feared would be a prime target.
They made all the canons there.
 
I don't remember it, however my father was stationed at Schofield Barracks and was there that Sunday morning. He was also a member of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association.
 
fourfords said:
I live in the next County over from San Bernardino. Needless to say, this whole area is quite taken aback by this week's terrorist act. For many, this is another day of Infamy. I am angry and sad at the same time.

As an aside, i understand the couple who murdered these people had a six month old. And dropped off the child at the Grandmother's house just prior to the attack. This mind set is completely beyond anything I could ever imagine. Maybe some of the older folks of the World War Two Era can educate this current generation and prepare them for what might be in store.
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My concern also. This is just the beginning of bigger things to come. Not good.

I doubt if we have 'what it takes' to get thru really bad times like the WWII Generation did. Today too many folks are looking for a free handout-entitlement, those guys in the Model A and Early V-8 era just sucked it up, did what they had to do, put it behind them and went on.

Kind of like what a Model A restorer today does with bad repop parts:)
 
M y folks both graduated from high school in 1942 and all thru their lives kept very clear and distant memories of those days as they came up on the calendar every year.
My Dad Volunteered in 1943 and was sent to Belgium where he fought and was captured and escaped from the germans in the battle of the bulge Dec.17th 1944 He wrote his story and a lot of it is told in the book "Citizen Soldier" by Stephen Ambrose an author and historian who helped with the series Band of Brothers and Saving Private Ryan among others!

i have always tried to repeat these memories to my children through their lives as well!
 
Not to in any way diminish our remembrance of our "date which will live in infamy", nor our coming together as a nation to defeat the Axis, but one may view those events from a perspective a bit different than our own, as prophesied by Winston Churchill on the eve of the Battle of Britain:

... What General Weygand has called The Battle of France is over. The battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilisation. Upon it depends our own British life and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of a perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, "This was their finest hour".
— Winston Churchill 18 June 1940
 
When I was a little kid, before class began, we all stood up and recited the Pledge Of Allegiance. I also remember the "Duck-And-Cover" drills during the Cuban Crisis. I remember being told during school that the President had been shot. I still cry as an adult when I look at the Zapruder film. I remember the Vietnam veterans returning from war. I was a very young manager for a business. The returning soldiers we gave jobs to had no cars so I gave them a ride home. The stories they told were fresh and unbelievably horrible. I remember these things as if they just happened.

I have an Uncle who was at the Battle Of The Bulge. had an Uncle who was a flight engineer on B-17's over Europe, I had an Uncle who was killed during "The Battle Off Samar" Philippines October 25, 1944, I had another Uncle who swept Tokyo Bay for mines for the Japanese surrender. I had another Uncle who was in the Occupying force in Europe and and anther Uncle who walked the Berlin Wall in Germany at the beginning of the "Cold War". I missed Vietnam by about a year and my Dad was finishing up College when the Korean war ended. I'm so proud of them, words don't cover it. My hope is this generation will recognize the threat and rise to the occasion. Remember Pearl Harbor!
 
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ford38v8 said:
Not to in any way diminish our remembrance of our "date which will live in infamy", nor our coming together as a nation to defeat the Axis, but one may view those events from a perspective a bit different than our own, as prophesied by Winston Churchill on the eve of the Battle of Britain:

... What General Weygand has called The Battle of France is over. The battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilisation. Upon it depends our own British life and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of a perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, "This was their finest hour".
— Winston Churchill 18 June 1940
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Good of you to mention Churchill. Last winter I spent a loong time on Chemo.
I was lucky to have a copy of "The Churchill Factor". I now know that It was his spunk that kept the pressure on to resist the Axis powers. He changed history.

Here's to what JonC said, Post #3. --- Tom
 
I was born in '53 and the Vietnam war was de-escalating when I got my draft card. Likewise my dad was an 18 year old training as a fighter pilot when WW2 ended. He served in the Army Air corps during the occupation of Germany and flew from a base in Nordholz Germany. As long as I can remember I have read everything I can get on WW2 and there are lots of books. I visited Pearl Harbor and the surrounding areas a couple of years ago and it made a huge impression on me. I have a tremendous amount of respect for what Tom Brokaw named 'The greatest generation'. They were raised in the great depression along with the dust bowl and as they reached adulthood were called upon to save our freedom and way of life from a ruthless axis foe. They came home victorious and built the infrastructure we still count on today. Tonight after work I watched the first 3 episodes of a show put out by amazon that can be streamed on a computer. I had my 34 year old employee show me how to stream it before he left, as I had no idea how. This show is called 'The man in the high castle' and is about an alternative ending to ww2 in which we lost the war in 1947. Hitler dropped the bomb and they invaded at Virginia Beach and other places. The drama takes place in 1962 in an occupied America with the Rocky mountain states as a neutral zone and the West belonging to Japan and the East to the Germans. Needless to say there is an active underground of solid patriots. I have often thought about how close the war was at different stages and how it could have gone the other way. It's a very interesting thing to watch.....Reading that speech by Churchill always gives me goosebumps. God bless all those that gave their lives or sacrificed for the good of all of us who followed, and yes, let us not forget.
 
Ol' Ron said:
History is a great teacher, unfortunately, not many people pay any attention to it. Especially politicians.
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True that. Every chance they get our leaders run head first into the bramble patches our founding fathers warned about.

Different times for sure. Can't even imagine this president back then. He'd no doubt be running around babbling about the weather whilst conflict begins in Europe.
 
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I had just turned six years old in November of 1941. My oldest brother, still in high school had joined the Civil Defense Corp. We lived in Baltimore City at that time. My first and only male cousin had already been drafted into the U S Army. His father was a member of the Home Guard and as a volunteer guarded a draw bridge in south Baltimore after work at his job. Many of the young men on our block, from our church and local businesse's were soon drafted. So I was aware that our country was at war.
 
TonyM said:
The students are taught history with survey courses. There is a lot more than just World War II when it comes to history ( the 50 or so years leading up to World War II are incredibly important in understanding the real causes of the war). And most students HATE history. They just don't care and they DON'T make the effort to learn it. It is that simple.

I went to school a long time ago and if a boy wanted to know about WWII battles, he had to visit a library and check out the books himself. The grade school and high school history classes are survey courses--they try to pack in as much history as they can for the term. You just can't spend the whole semester on World War II.

We were taught the basics of World History for that era and then the class moved on to the next chapter. That is just the way it is. Like anything else in grade school or high school--if the student wants to learn more, then they will have to do it on their own. By the way, I am an university-trained historian (my expert field of study is the first 50 years of the 20th century) and a published history author (in print for nine years now).

Simple fact: Most students hate history.
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I'm sure you have some good titles of your own but i believe "A Century of War" and "Atlas Shrugged" should be part of a history reading list.
 
I wonder how many adults, much less kids , know who Kimmel and Short were? If you don't read up on them.
 
I was 5 years old when it happened, but 20 years later was stationed at Schofield Barrracks and saw all the points that the **** bombed and later visited the Memorial at Pearl Harbor.
 
I was born 5 yrs. after the war ended but heard lots of stories from others in the family
where they were and what they were doing when Pearl Harbor was bombed.
My father lost two cousins there that day in the bombing.
I also have been two Pearl Harbor twice and it is a moving experience.
 
My father in law was already in the army and was home on leave at the Giant's football game when they made an announcement for all service men to return to their base. He landed on Normandy and went straight thru to Russia under "Old Blood and Gut's", George Patton. They truly were the "Greatest Generation". Man I wish Franklin D Roosevelt was our President now.
 
I wasn't born yet, but my grandfather was already in the Army on Pearl Harbor day. He served in North Africa invasion November 1942, Tunisia Campaign 1943, Invasion of Sicily July 1943, Invasion of Italy Sept 1943, Italian Campaign 1944, Southern France 1945; went home a casualty in 1945. He hated WWII and went absolutely ballistic when my uncle joined the army during Viet Nam. I am told he was not the same guy when he came back.
 
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