[shrinkermd]

As a personal aside, like everyone alive on that day I remember where I was. My Mother and I were in a movie theater. When we came out my father was crying and he gave us the news. His brother, and my uncle, had already been drafted. Two more would follow.

[Chi-townChief]

And I bet they didn't complain if they were sent by "chickenhawk" Frank Roosevelt to fight Germany, a country that "never did anyhing to us."

[Vaquero]

...Those who say that Mr. Bush's campaign for global democracy is overreaching

I for one think it is unecessary to give the gift of democracy to these 6th century Islamofascist thinkers....I think a WWII attitude should have been the way to go....like carpet bombing the cities of the middle east back to the stone age with techniques developed for use against Dresden, Hamburg, and Tokyo...these middle easterners respect power and death and laugh at our light handed approach to war....they get much worse than that from their own rulers.....the US is a cake walk to them by comparison.

[Battle Axe]

I wasn't alive, but I remember what Mom told us. She and Grandma were coming home from church, they always rode the bus to church as Grandma had never learned to drive. They were standing on a street corner waiting for this bus when the word was passed through the group. Mom was 20 years old.

[reagan_fanatic]

I wish these people would STOP referring to President Bush as 'Mr. Bush'

Last time I checked, he was still the President.

[Cagey]

His brother, and my uncle, had already been drafted.

I had forgotten about the draft and I'm pretty sure most people are not aware that the draft was instituted before Pearl Harbor.

[Lazamataz]

President Roosevelt proclaimed a goal of ensuring "four essential human freedoms." They were freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.

The first two are good, because they are the government's role, and because they are spelled out in the Constitution.

The second two -- freedom from want, and freedom from fear -- are not only not the government's role, but they are impossible for a government to provide. Want and fear are character defects of individuals, and people need to work on THEMSELVES. Then maybe -- by the grace of G-d -- they will be removed.

[BigCinBigD]

My mother was a "Rosie the riveter" during the war building B-24's for Consolidated. I have an Uncle I never got to meet her brother. Killed at Pearl that Sunday morning. I always remember Pearl Harbor.

[alloysteel]

People are already forgetting that 9/11 ever took place, and that is only a ltitle over five years. That people remember that Pearl Harbor ever occurred, may disappear as witnesses to that day pass from the scene.

I remember Pearl Harbor, not for the signal events of the day (I was not yet quite four years old), but because my father had just purchased a brand new 1942 Ford on December 6th. And paid what he though was just one hell of a price ($1,042). He could have sold it the following Monday morning for probably twice that, but then, what would he have for a car?

Since my father was a farmer, he was on "C" gasoline rationing, essentially unlimited, and that vehicle got hard use as a truck, ambulance, even pressed into use pulling trailers and one memorable instance, substituted for a tractor, pulling a hay rake. Didn't have enough traction to pull a plow, though. (In case you are wondering, there was a bumper hitch bolted on the back bumper and extending up to the frame.)

When you have to drive a nail, a lot of things look like a hammer.