On December 6, 1941 – eighty years ago today, Japanese fighter planes attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. My father was thirteen at the time and was affected by the day enough to soon apply for the Army, only to be sent home.
The attack was technically a surprise, though tensions with Japan and also Germany had been increasing for some time as America was drawn toward war to defend its allies. Fewer Americans were killed that day than on September 11, 2001, but its impact was even more devastating to the psyche of the nation, steeling it for war in ways that Japan could not have expected.
The attack has been memorialized in film multiple times, but actual memories have faded as Tom Brokaw’s Greatest Generation have slowly passed way. The eldest son of my father’s family was accepted into the Marine’s and fought in the battle of Iwo Jima. He died not too long ago, but I wrote a short poem about him and his experience. I share it here in his honor.
Nearly ninety now
and still it is hard to speak
of Iwo Jima
