Why Remember Pearl Harbor?

From the December 6, 2020,  LimaOhio.com "Jim Krumel:  Remembering a Pearl Harbor survivor" by Jim Krumel.

I wrote about the first part of the column in my Running the Blockade:  Civil War Navy blog.

Every December 7,  I stop writing about all subjects in my eight blogs and concentrate on Pearl Harbor.  I also put up flags.  No one else in our neighborhood puts up flags for this date.  Some of them (they're in their 30s and 40s, might very well not know the significance of this day in U.S. history.

Wayne Rader was at there December 7, 1941, at Schofield Barracks on Oahu, which was also attacked.  For years afterwards, he wouldn't talk about it.

"We can't let people forget... you can't let them forget," he would say, often with tears in his eyes.  America was taught a lesson that day in a sneaky, cruel way.  So many young men and women came into harm's way that day.  One of those who died  was Frederick DeLong of Cridersville.  He was just 29 years old.

The United States had been caught off guard that day.  It was a lesson we were served again on September 11, 2001.

Years from now, today's high school seniors will be telling stories about going to school during the coronavirus.  You won't hear them talking about 9/11 -- they weren't even born then.  And, unless they have had a good history teacher -- or just a history class -- they may not be able to tell you the significance of Pearl Harbor.

We cannot let them forget.  You cannot let them forget.

When I taught school, we had a several day unit on Pearl Harbor (even though I just had U.S. history up to the Civil War).

--Pearl Harbor