IN DEFENSE OF COMMON SENSE
By Hetty Gray
# 296
“December 7, 1941, a day that will live in infamy…”
December 7, 2021
Eight years ago today II was nary a glimmer in my parents’ eyes and my older brother was not quite twenty months old. My folks were going about their business working during the week and going to church on Sunday — living what we would judge today to be the “American dream.” Theirs was a life far different from that we witness today. But eighty years and a hours ago, the news that came across radios across this nation spurred my parents’ generation to action they could never have imagined just a day before.
Unlike so many young people today, their peers were devoted Americans, aware of their blessings of freedom and determined to defend them with their lives.
A sunny, peaceful Sunday morning on the island of Oahu was shattered by the sounds of incoming fighter planes and the explosions that rocked the Pearl Harbor.
Just as the cry, “Remember the Maine!” brought forth the nation to a zenith of determination, a new cry came forth: “Remember Pearl Harbor.”
The thousands who died that day are a testament to devotion to duty and love of country. Would that we would instill that fervor in our youth today.
As you pause tonight to listen to newscasts hark back eighty years, remember that some of those soldiers and sailors still survive. Sadly, more than 250 die each day. We look at the teenagers of today and see exuberance and energy, but too many of our people do not know that many of the “boys” who died in Pearl Harbor, and in the ensuing battles of World War II were teenagers themselves. It was very common for a young man to lie about his age and “join up.” If there is an estimate of the number who did so, I have not recovered it in research over the years.
Mine was a generation whose parents fought World War II, whose grandparents fought World War I. The memories, still fresh and engendered in us, steeled us to understand that freedom is not free.
President Reagan reminded us of that fact in his Farewell Address, “An informed patriotism is what we want. And are we doing a good enough job teaching our children what America is and what she represents in the history of the world?
“Those of us who are over 35 or so years of age (Bear in mind this dates to 1989) grew up in a different America. We were taught, very directly, what it means to be an American. And we absorbed, almost in the air, a love of country and an appreciation of its institutions…
…We’ve got to do a better job of getting across that America is freedom — freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of enterprise. And freedom is special and rare. It’s fragile; it needs protection.”
Perhaps never in our history do we need to internalize this message and commit ourselves to a new mission: see to it that our schools teach all our history, successes and failures alike. Make sure teachers contrast our Republic to the diminishing effects of socialism and communism. Illustrate the lack of all that we possess. Lack of freedom. Lack of personal achievement. In many cases, lack of personal property.
Even the Pilgrims learned this early on in their settlement in the New England area. After having all work for the “common good,” they saw dismal results. Once each person had a personal plot to work, the bounty proved that individual effort and “skin in the game” topped all the good intentions of communal living. Bluntly put, it just doesn’t work for the individual.
Don’t take your freedom for granted. It was earned by all those who fought on foreign soil, who died abroad never to enjoy the fruits of the labor for which they were so thankful. Set yourselves forth on a path for America.
To my mind, as a history and government teacher, John F. Kennedy would not recognize the party to which he belonged in the 1950s and 1960s. He could never be elected today, as the left wing seeks to destroy all he held dear. His words come forth as clearly today as they did when he took the oath of office January 20, 1961. “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.”
To a man, or woman, those who serve in our military not only ascribe to his words, but also live them. Do not forget December 7, 1941. Remember Pearl Harbor. Heed its lessons. The Japanese high command had a fear after that fateful day. They mulled over their decision and reflected that they feared that they “had awakened a sleeping giant.”
In so many ways, we are asleep today. We muddle through our lives with little regard for history. If nothing else, history — if ignored — does repeat itself. Let us vow, one and all, to dedicate ourselves as individuals, not to let the American dream perish. Those who died at Pearl Harbor would be proud of us.
Think about it.