Jack of Harts

This weekend was the anniversary of the day Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in a day that shall live in infamy. And it rated little mention compared to the Democrat Impeachment going on right now. I saw more posts on social media talking about the deaths of actors than Pearl Harbor. Some of those actors are my favorites, coming from shows I watched and loved as a young man. But none of what happens today ever could have happened without Pearl Harbor.

People forget how important Pearl Harbor was. It was a Sunday morning. People were going to church. Then Japan awoke the sleeping giant that was America and the whole world trembled at our outrage. We built the United Nations to end that threat and to stop another like it from ever coming to be. The United Nations has not lived up to that promise, but it was the kind of idea the previous generation of Americans had roundly refused to be part of. It took Pearl Harbor and the war it pulled us into to make Americans in general see that America could no longer ignore the outside world. That we had to remain involved out there if we were to stop another great war from happening.

We all grew up in the world that idea built. Pearl Harbor was the genesis of a movement that turned us from an insular nation that didn’t care about the rest of the world to a nation that fundamentally looked outward. Star Trek and Star Wars and so many other films and shows were successful because of that new world we built.

Pearl Harbor changed America in a fundamental way, and we must never forget.