Pearl Harbor Day: Remembering Days of Lost Innocence

"December 7th, 1941, a day that will live in infamy." Those were the words of Franklin Roosevelt regarding the attack by the Japaneese on Pearl Harbor. For many in my father's generation, this was a day of lost innocence. He was 21 on that day and he was as shocked as the rest of the nation over what took place in the middle of so-called peace talks. For the first time, he felt the US was truly vulnerable to foreign powers.

Days like this are important to people of every generation. I am a part of the extreme edge of the Baby Boom generation, having been born in December of 1961. Because of my age at the time of John F. Kennedy's death, I'm not considered a "real" boomer. However, my oldest brother was 17 on that November 1963 day and he remembers it as his time for lost innocence. A time when no one felt safe and the world seemed quite chaotic.

For me, my day of lost innocence was September 11, 2001. I was much later in age that my brother or father, and I certainly wasn't naieve about how things were in the country or world. But the ugly nature of the problems facing the rest of the world and the dangers that are in it, became very real that day.

On this day -- December 7th -- you might mention to people who experienced Pearl Harbor by living at that time, that you sympathize or even empathize and that you appreciate the sacrafice of their generation.