Seventy Years

Seventy years ago today, the Japanese Navy attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.  Nine ships were sunk, or destroyed, and fourteen were severely damaged.  188 aircraft were destroyed on the ground.  2,403 servicemen were killed.  1177 of those men died when the USS Arizona sank at her berth.  Another 1178 servicemen were wounded.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt addressed Congress the following day, asking them to declare war on Japan, declaring Dec. 7, 1941 to be a "date which will live in infamy".  With only one dissenting vote, war was declared. The United States of America was now embroiled in the Second World War, ending the policy of Isolationism, and any semblance of neutrality which the United States of America had striven to maintain.  The war would not end until nearly four years later, at the cost of countless lives, both military and civilian, on all sides of the conflict.

Regardless of your opinions of war and conflict, I would ask you to take pause this day to remember the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines who died that day at Pearl Harbor.

Also, remember those who survived.  Their numbers are dwindling.