On This Day

December 7th.

The Japanese attack on the U.S. Navy base
at Pearl Harbor was 70 years ago.

"The day we grew up," my Mother called it.

My Dad was 21 and enlisted in the Navy.

Howard's Dad was only 16, but he saw the war out as a sailor

on a destroyer escort ship in the Pacific.

A buddy of his snapped this while Dad

was catching some Zzzzsss in a bunk.

 The scope and breadth of the Second World War is almost unimagineable to us.
We are used to contained wars, not conflicts that spread to all corners of the globe.

If you are of a certain age, it's a pretty good bet your father, your uncles, maybe a granddad served.

Howard's Dad survived a kamikaze attack,

and was among the first Americans to enter Japan after the war ended.

My Dad was a Navy bombadier.

My friend Betsy's father-in-law was recently awarded the Legion of Honor medal from the French government.

He was part of the massive D-Day invasion.

Most of us know at least one WWII veteran,

although he might be quiet about it. 

Ordinary men, yanked out of their everyday lives,

to perform an extraordinary task -- to save the world.

Now that's the definition of a hero.

God bless all the members of our military, past and present.

*****************************************************************

And please send good wishes winging their way to Florida,

where Howard's Dad is in the hospital.  He is doing all right, but it's always better to be home.

My in-laws last June, at Alida and Josh's wedding.
How gorgeous are they, for 85 and 86?

2-1/2 week until Christmas, friends!  -- Cass

P. S.  If you have a relative or friend, now in his or her 80s or more, who served in the Second World War or who was a part of it on the domestic front, ask him or her to share their memories, in written form or recorded.  I promise you it is worthwhile, and these memories are precious.  Howard's Dad wrote a memoir of his time in the Navy, and it personalizes and makes real the war like nothing but a true story can do.