EasyEd
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Post by EasyEd on Dec 7, 2012 9:14:01 GMT -5
Let's salute those who died at Pearl Harbor to begin our country's involvement in our worst war since the Civil War. Not many on this board were alive at that time to remember the shock and the years that followed the Pearl Harbor bombing. I was almost ten at the time. Prior to that day I and my family had witnessed, via newsreels at the movies, the carnage that was that war, with all the sufferings of civilians through Europe. I was in our family room, probably scanning the comics, when my father informed my brothers and me of the bombing. My older brother immediately thought the carnage and suffering would come to our land and began to cry. My two brothers and I memorized Franklin Roosevelt's Day of Infamy speech which we repeatedly heard on radio (there was no TV, let alone internet).
The next four years of my life found the war to be the central thing hanging over my early teenage years. I attended a small Catholic school (grades 1-12 with about 200 total enrollment, in a school build in 1872). I knew everyone in that school and mourned when several of them gave their lives for our country. My father was too old to serve and my brother too young so the war did not involve our participation in combat but, like everyone in the country, we experienced rationing of things such as gasoline, metal, coffee, meat, etc. and the recycling of metal and paper. We had frequent air raid drills at school and in the entire city. We used maps to follow the war in Europe and in the Pacific. The war consumed us in those days; that was the followup to the Day of Infamy.
So, again I salute and say a prayer for all those who died at Pearl Harbor that we might enjoy a free December 7, 2012.
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DFW HOYA
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Post by DFW HOYA on Dec 7, 2012 10:50:24 GMT -5
Well said. Thanks for the thoughts.
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HoyaNyr320
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Post by HoyaNyr320 on Dec 7, 2012 11:25:42 GMT -5
Ed, thank you so much for sharing your memories and thoughts about your experience during World War II. We "youngsters" often take it for granted that the terrible carnage of WWII happened not so long ago - during the lifetimes of many of our relatives. Hearing first hand experiences like yours helps to give us some perspective of what it was like to live through that time and the important lessons that we can take away from it.
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SFHoya99
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Post by SFHoya99 on Dec 7, 2012 12:23:57 GMT -5
Thanks, Ed.
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tashoya
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Post by tashoya on Dec 7, 2012 22:06:58 GMT -5
Great post Ed. Not only are there not many on this board that remember those events, I'd be willing to bet that I'm not alone in having lost my closest family members that were of an age at that time that it was such a formative/impactful time. It's exactly your sort of story that makes me feel like not only do I really miss my grandfather specifically but am also really missing out on having that connection to my family's and my country's history from that personal perspective. In short, more posts like that one please Ed. Well done. And, as you wrote so personally, thoughts, prayers and salutes to all that lost their lives and all that gave so much.
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2ndRyan
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Post by 2ndRyan on Dec 10, 2012 16:42:30 GMT -5
My father was a member of the 26th Division, a National Guard Unit which was activated in January, 1941 and was returned to Camp Edwards on Cape Cod on December 6, 1941 to be shortly decativated. My father spent the next 3.5 years walking the beaches of North Carolina during the submarine scare of '42 and then guarding Afrika Korps prisoners in Texas.
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Nevada Hoya
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Post by Nevada Hoya on Dec 12, 2012 18:02:23 GMT -5
Thanks Ed. My father went over to the continent on D-Day plus six or seven. I was born while he was over in Germany and he did not see me until I was two. So, yes Pearl Harbor started our involvement. And yes we owe a great debt to the brave men, who fought that war.
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Filo
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Post by Filo on Dec 12, 2012 22:20:03 GMT -5
Great post, Ed, and nice to see the stories about / connections to something that seems like so long ago. My father enlisted in the Navy soon after Pearl Harbor (once he turned 17) and spent the next several years on a ship in the Pacific. Can't imagine what he (and all those others) saw, endured and sacrificed.
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SirSaxa
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Post by SirSaxa on Dec 17, 2012 19:04:42 GMT -5
My dad, uncle and many of their friends were all veterans of WWII. I also had the privilege of meeting many members of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association during the 60th anniversary events in Honolulu, along with 600 9/11 rescue workers and survivor families who came to Hawaii for a little R&R as guests of the people of that State. But this post is about a very special Pearl Harbor Veteran who died today, Medal of Honor winner and US Senator Daniel Inouye. I also had the privilege to meet Senator Inouye and hear him relate some of his war stories personally. The Senator was a 17 year old HS senior in Honolulu on Dec. 7, 1941, and was a member of a HS ROTC program. They were called in as part of an emergency call-up to help out carrying the wounded to hospitals, carrying the dead, and seeing things so horrific that no one, especially HS kids, should ever see. The senator went on to join the 442nd Army regiment with other Japanese-Americans and were sent to Italy where he single-handedly charged a German machine gun nest to save his fellow Americans who were trapped in a deadly crossfire. For that, he was awarded The Congressional Medal of Honor. Senator Inouye lost his arm in the war, and ended up in a US Army hospital with another war vet with a serious arm injury. The two became close friends and discussed what they would do after the war. They agreed on Politics. Both Inouye and his new pal, Bob Dole, went on to become long serving US Senators, from opposing parties. But their friendship was life long. Senator Inouye, the military's best friend in the Senate, will be missed. www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/daniel-k-inouye-us-senator-dies-at-88/2012/12/17/61030936-b259-11e0-9a80-c46b9cb1255f_story.html?hpid=z1
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Post by flyoverhoya on Dec 18, 2012 9:53:30 GMT -5
Amen to SirSaxa's post. Inouye's was an amazing story.
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Nevada Hoya
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Post by Nevada Hoya on Dec 21, 2012 16:09:59 GMT -5
Great story, Sir Saxa!
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