"A Date Which Will Live in Infamy"

"A Date Which Will Live in Infamy"

Exactly seventy years ago, on the morning of December 7th, 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy launched the most devastating attack ever witnessed on American soil.

Deploying some 353 fighters, bombers, and torpedo planes launched from 6 aircraft carriers offshore Pearl Harbor, the sneak attack claimed the lives of 2,402 civilians and military personnel, wounded 1,282, sank or damaged 16 American warships, destroyed 188 U.S. aircraft and marked the beginning of our involvement in World War Two.

The “infamy” to which President Franklin Delano Roosevelt referred the next day during his address to a joint session of Congress is generally interpreted to have meant the attack itself and it was beyond infamous. However, as we learned much later, a lack of preparedness, horrendous mistakes, and possible duplicity on FDR’s part were also contributory factors in America’s losses.

Similar factors played a role sixty years later when Islamic maniacs crashed planes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a vacant field in rural Pennsylvania.

If America had learned anything from the 1941 attack, we had forgotten what we learned by September 11th, 2001. If we learned anything from 2001, we have forgotten that as well. Despite security pretenses, the United States is as vulnerable to Muslim fanatics in 2011 as we were ten years ago.

We can play self-satisfying security games and wring our hands all we want, we can strip-search old ladies at airports, and we can fight wars with no strategy for winning but there is only one certain route to defeating an enemy, implementing a resolve for total victory, a resolve we sorely lack.

As a result, America will surely sustain other December 7ths, other September 11ths, perhaps more deadly than those attacks.

Let us remember Pearl Harbor Day and may God grant us the wisdom to avoid its repetition.