December 7, 1941: “a day that will live in infamy”: the surprise attack on the U.S. Navy base at Pearl Harbor–I haven’t yet heard anyone else mention it today, so I will.
One Pearl Harbor Day, not many years ago, found me teaching in a public high school, where I soon discovered that the students had never heard of Pearl Harbor. So I told them about it, and told them how my father and his friends all flocked to the recruiting office, where they were turned away because they were still too young. The students looked at me quizzically, and one of them asked, “Well, what did they do that for?” Why did these young men volunteer to defend their country after it had been attacked?
That question, and whatever prompted it, is part of the Day of Infamy that lives on.
But that’s what public education, and our downfallen culture, will do to our young people.