Saturday, December 7, 2013

Remember the Maine

Someday, Pearl Harbor will be forgotten.  Relegated to the same forgotten history as the Maine, the Lusitania, and Fort Sumter.  Events noted in historical trivia once a year, but not...commemorated as it was.

Pearl Harbor was NOT the start of WWII.  Ask the Brits.  Ask the Germans.  Ask the Poles.  Ask the Russians.

What are the lessons of Pearl Harbor?  Eternal Vigilance?  The danger of Imperial overreach?  Life is short?

There are things that cannot be said in polite company about war.  I'll stick with the statement of General Sherman..."War is hell."

I confess, without shame, I am sick and tired of fighting—its glory is all moonshine; even success the most brilliant is over dead and mangled bodies, with the anguish and lamentations of distant families, appealing to me for sons, husbands and fathers ... 'tis only those who have never heard a shot, never heard the shriek and groans of the wounded and lacerated ... that cry aloud for more blood, more vengeance, more desolation. - General W. T. Sherman

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