GREATEST GENERATION
About 90 minutes into our NBC News coverage of 9/11, with the eerie, almost slow-motion television images of the fatally wounded twin towers dominating every television screen, I thought, “My God, is this our Pearl Harbor?” There were so many similarities and yet so many differences.
It was a bold, brutal sneak attack for which we had no warning until the first airliner crashed into the upper reaches of the South Tower.
In rapid succession, the Pentagon was attacked by a hijacked American Airlines flight and a United flight went down in Pennsylvania after a passenger revolt.
We later learned the CIA and other Washington intelligence agencies had spent the summer in states of high anxiety after picking up signals that al- Qaeda and Osama bin Laden were planning a strike against the U.S.
In short order, America was at war in Afghanistan and Iraq against jihadist groups and the regime of Saddam Hussein.
Seventy-five years ago on Dec.
There wasn’t anything unusual about this decision, mind you. Millions of Americans put their lives on hold to serve their country and help the war effort.
In Victory Gardens and factories here on the home front — as in the various theaters of conflict across Asia, Africa and Europe — virtually every American wanted to do their part, no matter how big or small, to help secure freedom’s victory over tyranny.
It was one of our nation’s finest hours.
As we pause to reflect on the shock of Pearl Harbor and its aftermath, the ultimate outcome of World War II might seem as if it was foreordained. It was not.
Before Pearl Harbor, many believed the tide of democracy, which had lifted and sustained our republic for 165 years, was ebbing. Totalitarianism was on the march, and the widespread misery of the Great Depression had some declaring capitalism dead — and seeking to concentrate vast new powers in the hands of federal government. They felt the United States was a nation in decline and needed to follow a new path to the future.
Instead, it was America who, after vanquishing the dictatorial despots and their legions, reached out to make those erstwhile enemies our friends.
We helped heal their wounds, rebuild their societies and give birth to new democracies and free-market economies.
Today, we can take heart that the United States and Japan are not only friends but sworn allies.
The bitter rancor of that bygone era has yielded to decades of international cooperation and collaboration. Looking forward, it is absolutely vital that Japan and the world can count on America to continue leading — working together for peace, democracy, freedom and justice around the world.
Only then can we count ourselves worthy of the selfless sacrifices born by our fellow countrymen — and consecrated in the waters of Pearl Harbor.