Go back to Dec. 7th, 1951, ten years after Pearl Harbor. The enemy had been ground into the dirt for over six years by then (and we were in another war, thanks to joining the UN, but that’s another story). We and the rest of the world had stepped and done what was needed. We had our surprise at Pearl Harbor - they had theirs at Hiroshima. 9-11 should have been handled the same way.
How the tenth anniversary of Pearl Harbor was observed—or not observed
Stephen T. writes:
I’ve been wondering how Americans of 1951 must have commemorated the tenth anniversary of Pearl Harbor with teary ceremonies coast to coast, anguished cries over why God let it happen, and entreaties to hand-hold with our enemies so that it will never happen again. Oh, wait. According to this interesting AP piece, they didn’t:
Pausing to remember Pearl Harbor didn’t dominate the news, nor, according to anecdotal newspaper accounts, was it at the forefront for many Americans.
On Dec. 7 of that year [1951], the top headlines told of the latest news from Korea.
Many newspapers put the Pearl Harbor anniversary on their front pages, but they squeezed it in among the dozen or so stories commonly crammed on a page in those days. Many relegated it to the bottom of the front page.
LIFE, a weekly magazine that was among the most prominent publications of the time, made no mention of the anniversary in either its Dec. 3 or Dec. 10 editions, said Emily Rosenberg, a history professor at University of California, Irvine.
The only mention of Japan, Rosenberg said, came in a story about American servicemen from the Korean War seeking respite at Japanese baths attended to by “’plump Japanese girls in pale blue play skirts.’’’ There were several ceremonies in Hawaii to remember the attack.
The one at Pearl Harbor was only for the Navy, which had recently installed a small platform and flagpole at the sunken wreck of the USS Arizona. Other memorials, including a Catholic mass at a cathedral and a ceremony at a national cemetery in Honolulu, remembered the Pearl Harbor dead alongside those killed in World War II and the Korean War.
Some even had trouble remembering Pearl Harbor at all.
http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/020440.html