My Pearl Harbor

When I was a kid my mom would tell me about where she was and how she heard about the attack on Pearl Harbor.  Pretty much the same story they were working in the yard when her mother came out to tell them about the attack and everyone knew this meant war.  Mom was 8 but she never forgot that singular moment. 

Now, I'd lived a while before a certain 11th of September.  I'd seen the Cuban Missile Crisis, the whole war in Vietnam (some of it from a vantage point in the Republic of Korea), and the assassination of John F. Kennedy and Pak Chung-hee.  Still, as I sat at my computer semi-watching the new-to-me Fox News Channel I was more than a bit disconcerted to hear of the plane crash into the World Trade Center. 



They only told us about it at first. Many recalled the B-25 that had crashed into the Empire State Building during WWII (July 1945). However, that had happened in fog/heavy cloud cover and it was a clear day in New York City. The impact of the 2nd plane immediately put to rest any ideas of there being any accident. Everybody knew what and why. Only fools expected any other perpetrators to be named. Although we'd been attacked many times before, this act is what started the war against radical Islamists.



Now 10 years later people have apparently been working hard to put the facts of the case out of their minds. There are still conspiracy theorists, so-called "truthers" (some of whom have actually been in the Obama administration), and apologists for the terrorists who say it was our egregious behavior which is at the root of their antagonism. The truth is though that 10 years ago a radical Islamist group attacked us, again, because we are not like them and they wish to destroy us. History tells us this will never end for them unless they are dead. We aren't working hard enough to make that happen so, perhaps, 10 years from now we will still be in conflict with these people. Whatever happens we shouldn't forget those of us who have died in this war.