Let’s Remember Pearl Harbor

December 7, 1941

Just as 9/11  is a marker for this current generation, and November 22 was for mine, Sunday  December 7, 1941 was a where-were-you-when-kind of day that was seared permanently in the memory of the greatest generation, including my parents.

The war was still over there, though the news was full of muffled but ominous portents. From the Far East came reports of Japanese troop movement in Indochina and that Saturday  night FDR would make a last-minute appeal to the Japanese Emperor Hirohito for direct talks but to no avail.

Like most Americans, my mother and her family did not expect to be at war the next day or the next week or even the next month, but they knew in their hearts it was inevitable.

When, was the big question.

Business as Usual

So like everyone else, my mother’s family went about their business.

The…