The day before infamy...

"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve..."

Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto

December 6th has always meant three things to me. First, it is my birthday. Second, it is the birthday of St. Nicholas (Santa). And last but certainly not least, it marks the last day of our national innocence. It is the day before - the Day of Infamy.

I always have wondered what it was like to be alive back then. Actually, not only alive, but serving. The war was going on in Europe, and Great Britain was fighting for survival. We were "officially" not involved in the growing war in Europe. I say officially, as we were operating under the Lend-Lease Act. Under this act, we were supplying ships and arms to our allies in Europe. As such, even though FDR pledged to keep us neutral, we were not. The fact is, we already had soldiers, sailors, airmen and civilians dying in the war effort as early as 1940. 

To sign up, to serve back then, was a matter of sitting on the edge of history. Everyone who had an honest thought knew what was coming. War was spreading like a cancer in Europe as well as Asia. If not for the large expanse of water between our country, Europe and Asia, no doubt we would have been knee deep in this war by 1940.

The lucky ones who signed up and went through training received orders to this group of islands halfway across the pacific. Not yet a state, Hawaii was a protectorate of the United States. That is where we harbored a good portion of our Pacific Fleet.

The weather in November of 1941 in the northern part of the United States was - well like it usually is. Winter was starting to set in. To draw orders to Hawaii, and have duty in Pearl Harbor, that sounded pretty darn good. 

Were we worried about the Japanese? Sure, but we were not worried about them attacking us. Especially at Pearl, where the harbor seemed safe to any type of attack. We were so sure of ourselves, we had some of our finest battleships, sitting next to each other in a row, gleaming in the warm Pacific sun. It was like being on a different planet compared to what was going on in Europe.

December 6, 1941 was our final day of innocence. Of our nativity. It was the day before one of the most famous "sucker punches" in world history. When the bombs started to fall, and torpedoes ran into our ships the morning of December 7th, our nation changed. We woke up. For when the "Great War" ended in 1918, we really believed it was the war to end all wars. Evil was vanquished, and mankind would live in peace from then on. We were so wrong.

We collectively changed on December 7, 1941. As FDR most famously said, "This was the day which will live in infamy". And it was. However, the statement by Admiral Yamamoto is even more poignant for that day:

"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve..."

Yes Admiral, you did. And as painful as that day was, it brought us officially into this most terrible war. From that war, was born a great power - a super power. Did this attack on December 7, 1941 lead us into a war which would vanquish evil forever more? Not hardly. But we will never again be caught as naive and unprepared as we were up through December 6, 1941. A sleeping giant, we are no more.