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• Monday, December 05, 2016

  Why We Remember Pearl Harbor

  As we mark the 75th anniversary of the Dec. 7th attack on Pearl Harbor, which ushered the U.S.A. into World War II, one phrase keeps coming to mind; one phrase that eternally rings true:

  Freedom is not free.

  As wartime veterans, we instinctively know that. We live and breathe it.

  I am also reminded of an epitaph emblazoned on the memorial at the Kohima War Cemetery in northeast India, where 1,420 Allied war dead are buried. They helped turn the tide in the Burma Campaign, stopping the Japanese advance.

  The epithah:

  When you go home, tell them of us and say,
  For your tomorrow, we gave our today.

  What a powerful testimony to the sacrifices of our World War II veterans, who gave their “todays” from Pearl Harbor to the Battle of Berlin.

  What a powerful tribute to all veterans. Without hesitation, they give their today for our tomorrow.

  — Commander John Sampson, Department of New York

  

  USS Missouri Battleship Museum at Pearl Harbor. The site of the treaty signing ending WWII between the US and Japan, the ship is now berthed in Pearl Harbor.