12-8-02, Voice in the Crowd
A Day Stamped in
Memory
By Pete Chaney
IPS Features
Certain days in history are stamped indelibly on our memories. People will ask each other, “Where were you on the day . . .?” Most recently forever marked on our mental calendars will be the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. Older ones will remember where they were when the Berlin Wall came down, when Jack Kennedy or Martin Luther King, Jr., were assassinated. When we marked D-Day, VE-Day and VJ-Day. For the younger ones, that would be the invasion of Europe by the Allies, when we marked victory in Europe and when Japan surrendered.
Each year around December 7, the media begins looking for someone who remembers Pearl Harbor. One year Joe Cheek recalled Bill Henry had been in the navy in the Pacific when the attack came. He asked Bill if he were there when the planes came in.
“No, I wasn’t there,” Bill recalled. “But I remember we could see the ships still smoking on the bottom when we came back to Pearl.”
For my generation, the defining day was Pearl Harbor. For years, my father half jokingly had warned my mother that when she bought a toy made in Japan she was supporting a future enemy. I was nine years on the farm that Sunday when the somber radio voices told of the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. My first cousin Willie Garton was in the army and stationed there. Even my age, I recognized the impact on America and the whole world. Two of the most powerful nations on the planet—Germany and Japan—were ought to destroy the United States. Germany had conquered most of Europe. Japan ruled the land and sea in Asia. Soon all four of my mother’s brothers were in service—two in the army, one in the air corps and one in the navy. We had maps on the wall with pins bearing American, British, German and Japanese flags to show the movements.
“Remember Pearl Harbor” brought Americans together. There was a common enemy—the dictators of Germany and Japan. Their cause was simply wanting power and land. There was no religious fervor involved. No one was trying to convert another to his way of worship. Our enemy, though, was visible and represented by the swastika and the rising sun. We knew where they were and where the battlefield was.
When it was announced Japan had surrendered, a friend and I got on the front fenders of the ’37 Plymouth my mother drove. We straddled the headlights and drove up and down Main Street shouting with the horns blowing, church bells chimed. Everyone screamed with relief and happiness.
We now have a different war. The enemy is not massed at the border of any one nation.
They are not facing the free world on a battlefield.
There are no banners to hate, no uniforms to mark the enemy.
Bin Laden may be the focal point behind
9-11, may be the mastermind and the villain America hunts.
But he is only a visible sign of the enemy that wants to destroy freedom
and the systems of government which allows a man to be all the he can be.
The enemy is fanatical hatred, a holy religious war against everyone who
doesn’t think as they do.
And it will take more than nuclear
submarines and aircraft carriers, more than Stealth bombers, more than a
$50-million war command center to win against an idea.
If America bombed every country suspected of harboring terrorists,
quarantined nations who accept religious and liberty intolerance, we would not
root out an idea. Communism did not
fall because of fear over military might. Russia
could destroy the world with as much might as we could.
China likely still can.
Communism failed in the Soviet Union, and
is failing in China because it cannot stand up against capitalism and freedom.
This came about, and still is, because of communication which lets the world see
Americans aren’t so bad after all. Our
lives are not that unattractive.
We need, as Teddy Roosevelt said, speak
softly and carry a big stick. We
have the big stick. Instead of
relying solely on military might, America needs to conduct a battle of words, of
ideology. You can kill hatred with
bombs. Education can show our
enemies our side.
Jimmy Carter was a lousy president, but
has accomplished more since he left the White House than he did in office.
Maybe it is appropriate that at this time he has bee awarded the Nobel
Peace Prize.
Who knows?
Maybe one day our children or grandchildren will be able to ride up and
down the streets with horns blowing to celebrate the victory over terrorism.
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