Wednesday, December 7, 2011

A Day That Will Live In Infamy...

December 7, 1941...


In a geopolitical sense the attack on Pearl Harbor was predictable, perhaps even inevitable.  The precise timing was certainly a surprise though.  The war in the Pacific was a vicious conflict waged against a brutal foe.  The good guys won, but not without paying a heavy price.

These days Americans drive cars and watch TVs made by Mitsubishi, the same company that manufactured the infamous A6M Zero fighter.  And Japanese travelers fly around the world on airliners made by Boeing, who also made the B17s destroyed at Hickam Field that morning, and the B29s that delivered the atomic bombs that ended the Second World War four years later.

We honor the dead, who are forever young.  We pay our respects to the living, who number fewer and fewer with each passing year.  The wheel turns...

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons