Raceway air show wrong to re-enact Pearl Harbor

It’s the grand finale of the show that has turned our stomachs.

Don’t get us wrong.

We love a good show just as much as the next person.

But a recent announcement about an air show at Pocono Raceway has left us wondering just what in the world officials at the track are thinking.

In case you haven’t heard, the Great Pocono Raceway Air Show is going to have a host of entertainment on Aug. 24 and 25 next year.

Of course, their will be airplanes, displays, vendors and even something called the “Fan Fair,” which promises kid-friendly entertainment.

But it’s the grand finale of the show that has turned our stomachs.

A group called Tora! Tora! Tora! is coming to the Long Pond race track. (If the name of the group doesn’t ring a bell, you need to go back to your eighth grade history class.)

In case you haven’t heard or figured it out yet, Tora! Tora! Tora! will be performing an historic reenactment of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, with up to 12 replica Japanese planes.

Isn’t that just wonderful? In case you miss the sarcasm, we don’t think it’s wonderful. In fact, it’s downright offensive to those who gave their lives on that fateful day.

Let’s forget for a moment that there isn’t a harbor anywhere in Long Pond that could hold the 16 U.S. Navy ships that were either destroyed or damaged during the actual attack.

We are sure the 2,000-foot wall of fire promised during the performance will more than make up for a lack of a deep-water port.

We’re not sure, however, if that wall of fire is supposed to represent the torpedoes that caused the USS Oklahoma to capsize, trapping many of its crew inside, or if it is an ode to the bomb that struck the USS Arizona’s magazine, sending it to the bottom and claiming 1,177 officers and crewmen.

Quite simply, we can’t believe that anyone would think re-enacting an attack that killed 2,403 Americans and wounded another 1,143 is appropriate.

May be we are just a little too sensitive.

The Tora! Tora! Tora!’s website says it has been re-enacting the attack since 1972. It says it’s a “memorial to all the soldiers on both sides who gave their lives for their countries.”

Well then, we just hope that the 15 sailors that died on the USS Pennsylvania as it was hit while in dry dock are properly honored.

Actually, race track officials should just reconsider their decision and pass on hosting the Tora! Tora! Tora! group and the re-enactment.

“The motto of the Commemorative Air Force and the ‘Tora’ act is ‘Lest We Forget.’ ‘Tora, Tora, Tora,’ as other Commemorative Air Force flying history recreations, is not intended to promote nationalism or glorify war.

“The intent of the Tora group is to help generations of individuals throughout the world born after World War II understand that war does not discriminate in the pain it causes and that courageous individuals on both sides lose their lives,” the group’s website says.

A lofty goal.

But excuse of us if we believe the only thing that anyone is going to learn at this show is that planes can drop things that blow up.

We hardly believe that this is what Franklin D. Roosevelt meant when he said Dec. 7, 1941, was “a day that will live in infamy.”

Quite simply, we can’t believe that anyone would think reenacting an attack that killed 2,403 Americans and wounded another 1,143 is appropriate. May be we are just a little too sensitive. Race track officials should just reconsider their decision and pass on hosting the Tora! Tora! Tora! group and the reenactment.