Pearl Harbor: 80 Years Ago Today

The sky was so blue that day.

Got us outta The Depression. We didn't have to eat grass soup anymore!

I used to know an elderly man (now deceased) in Portland, Maine, who was stationed at Pearl Harbor during the attack. What a story he had to tell! It was harrowing,.

If they hadn't we would never have entered World War II.

More than you probably want to know about Pearl Harbor and the salvage operation:

Reportedly, there are now about 75 surviving American servicemen from the attack, several over 100 years old.

We would have entered the war eventually. It was a disaster for the US, but a convenient one. Even more conveniently, Hitler declared war on US so Roosevelt didn't have to convince anyone to fight both Germany *and Japan.

"We can't possibly lose the now -- the Japanese have never lost a war in 3000 years!"

There were dissidents in Japan, just as there were in Germany and occupied countries.

80 years ago? I better put on my most bulbous Pearls to clutch for this Pearl Harbor anniversary.

"Who's Pearl Habor?"

Some pilots near the end of the war had been forced into suicide missions and deliberately crashed in the sea. Others, of course, aimed for their targets as ordered or were carrying out atrocities in the war.

Whoopi was talking about it on The View this morning and said over and over again, "It happened, it really happened!" since, you know, Fake News and all. Isn't 2021 fun? Sad.

40 years ago today I remember being in woodshop class in 7th grade. A older teacher came in complaining that the 40th anniversary of the attack hadn't been mentioned in the morning announcements. I remember kinda rolling my eyes about it, and I feel guilty now. That teacher has likely passed, and I'm now close to as old as he was then.

Time is a bitch. As are regrets.

"Whoopi was talking about it on The View this morning and said over and over again, "It happened, it really happened!" since, you know, Fake News and all. Isn't 2021 fun? Sad."

will she say the same about Hiroshima?

I was there in my 20s and remember feeling angry at a bunch of Japanese tourists standing around a big model of the Arizona and smiling and talking as they pointed at the model.

I went back in my 50s and didn’t really care. I’ve seen decades of people being shitty to others, and stupidly sabotaging their own futures. What I was angry about in my 20s I’m sort of resigned to now.

Good thing too. American democracy as we know it is on the verge of ending. The fact that it could be ended by a short-fingered vulgarian narcissist suggests it wasn’t worth saving in the first place.

It was worse when singer Pearl Bailey was attacked by miniature Japanese airplanes.

I read the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association disbanded a few years ago. So few survivors it wasn’t worth it to keep meeting. Survivors can have their ashes buried there if they want. Some events cast a long shadow over a life.

I did a tour of Pearl Harbor while on vacation in Japan. I did not expect to be so moved. It’s really an extraordinary memorial.

Geez did I really type Japan?? I meant Hawaii.

I remember thinking in the lead up to the 2020 election "What if good doesn't win out this time? What will become of us."

I wonder what it was like to be in this country in 1942 and 1943 when the outcome was far from sure. Did everyone just assume we'd win? Or were people worried?

R6, they were all the youngest then, some at 17. About a 3rd of the remaining veterans are Hawaiian.

A friend of my father's served on USS Arizona & survived. He was sitting on the john, taking a shit, when the bombing began. Died of a heart-attack in the early 1970s. He was married to legendary soap writer Pat Falken Smith.

I want the war in Ukraine to end. I feel as bad for the people of Ukraine now as I did almost a year ago.

I'm going to say that while Germany has done a lot to atone for their part in the situation, Japanese seem to be oblivious to their war crimes.

That's not at all true, R25.