REMBERING DEC. 7th 1941

I haven't posted since April, having been quite busy trying to get my home ready to put on the market, but as I thought about today being the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, I found myself thinking about how the lives of all of us who were alive on that date were changed from the moment we heard about it.
Our country has been involved in wars since that time, but this was the first time since we became a nation that our country was attacked by another country.

It was a quiet Sunday afternoon, & we were living on Bessemer Ave. which coincidently was the street my parents lived on when I was born. We lived in a two story house & are apartment was on the second story which was acessed by stairs in the rear off of a little porch.

My sister & I were playing together, & like in most familys of siblings, a disagreement arose. Who better to settle it than mom, so we both raced up the stairs & were about to present our "sides", when we were promptly shushed by our parents. The radio was on & we heard with amazement the announcer tell about the attack on Pearl harbor. At that moment, I'm sure the full impact of what we heard did not really register with us.

The next day we listened to the radio as President Roosevelt address Congress as our Nation declaired war on Japan. Our lives & those of our neighbors were changed. There was another house on the same lot behind ours. From that house, the oldest daughter would join the Marine Corp. along with her brother & nephew. Years later I was ble to visit the daughter Florence after locating her in Portland, Ore.

In later days we would pass many homes with the blue star proudly hanging in the window, & then sadly some with God stars indicating the loss of a family member.

We at home would learn to do without. As the war progressed, sugar, & other products were either in short supply or unattainable. At school we were visited by Army personel & I got to ride in a Jeep & became a Jr WAC, the army's woman's division. We helped by paper drives, & flattening our tin cans that our canned food came in. Patriotism was high & everyone wanted to help. Our information was limited to Newspapers, Newsreels at the theater & radio of course as to how the war was going.
Little did we realize when we heard that first announcement on Dec 7th, that the war would last 4 long years.

I will always be glad that I had the opportunity to have visited Pearl Harbor where so many lives were lost when the Japanese bombs fell that day. I hadn't really thought about the civilians who also died, until I read the Plaque with all of their names listed, & realized that there were whole families who died that day which included young children.

Visiting the memorial where the battleships were sunk that day, & gazing down into the water at the remnants of the Arizona, had a profound effect on me. Reading the letters of the young men which were on display there, letters written home to their families who would never see them again, I felt saddened at their loss.

The phrase used to recruit young men & women to join the service, as well as to all Americans in those war years was "Remember Pearl Harbor" It is something that I will never forget, & hope that others too will stop a moment & will remember with me.