quarterly-report.com Political and Social Commentary by James R. Audet

December 7, 1999
58th Anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor

Today, we honor the more than 2300 men that gave their lives the morning of December 7, 1941.

History has not been kind to the original understanding of the events that led to the disaster.   Declassified records reveal that the Roosevelt Administration had a better understanding of Japanese intentions than it acknowledged at the time.  It has nagged this writer why the Administration's policy of defeating Nazi Germany first was not challenged after the attack.  If one is assaulted by a bully, he generally does not seek a third person on which to avenge his wounds.

Little could brave men have known that the palm trees that rustled in the November breezes foreshadowed the political winds of war that would blow from both East and West.  They fought the battle of their lives that Sunday, as if each was at the helm of a car -- careening out of control -- headed straight for a tree.  For over two hours, they fought the wheel trying to avoid death.  For many, the immutability of inertia won.

We shall forever remember these men and their sacrifice. They are heroes without qualification.

The sunken battleship, USS Arizona, now a war memorial, still gives up her energy.  Tiny drops of fuel oil weep from its hull that holds the remains of 1177 men.  This non-homogeneous fluid rises and leaves an eddying wake on the surface that causes an optical diffraction of light as it drifts away.  Color dances under the influence of the sun.  The Arizona has good company now.  The battleship, USS Missouri, on which the Japanese surrender was signed, stands as a sentinel over her grave.  For the rest of time, this is as it should be.

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