Reflections
The Vanishing Generation
Next week the world will mark the 80th anniversary of a date President Franklin Roosevelt declared would live in infamy, December 7, 1941. Just before 8 AM on a quiet Sunday morning the skies over Honolulu Hawaii echoed with the drone of Japanese Zero aircraft. The first wave bombed and strafed the airfields to prevent the launch of counter attacks. Fifteen minutes later, the second wave dropped their torpedoes into Pearl Harbor permanently sinking the USS Arizona and the USS Oklahoma. Four other ships were sunk but recovered. 2,403 US service members died. It marked the entrance of the United States into World War II.
Tom Brokaw called those who experienced that day “The Greatest Generation.” They grew up in the Great Depression. They drove some of the first automobiles on the first paved highways in America. They went to work for the Works Progress Administration and built our nation’s infrastructure. They strung wires across our country and brought electricity and telephones to homes throughout America. They bought radios and invented the first television. They landed on the beaches at Normandy, raised the flag atop Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima and defended our freedom in World War II. More than 12 million served in the war. They were the first to enter space and chose to go to the moon. Today, their generation is vanishing from the earth. Most have passed their 100th birthday and they will all soon be gone.
Next week, we will pause to pay our respects to that generation and the price they paid for freedom, peace and prosperity. Our world continues to owe them a great debt
Every generation must rise to face the challenges of their day: some they will inherit, others they create. The enemies that today’s generation face are as real as the enemies our fathers faced. In some ways they are more challenging and more difficult and more deadly.
We are all citizens of one planet. We all breathe the same air, share the same space, harbor the same needs for respect, understanding, opportunity, freedom and faith. The past two years of Covid bear evidence to how intimately