Never - Ever - Forget!

Pearl Harbor
December 7, 1941:
Sunday morning - 0755 hours, attack began - over 2,000 killed

 

Opps...the Japanese declared war on us 55 minutes AFTER the attack began. They wanted to declare war on us 30 minutes before the attack began, but due to slow typing and slow translations, they were late. I still love the look of the Japanese ambassadors in the movie Tora, Tora, Tora when they realized their "error". Their look was, we really p..ssed them off this time...we're dead meat!

Once Admiral Yamamoto heard this, he stated, "I feared all we did was wake a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve."

He was right and Japan paid for this attack dearly. The whole country railed and you didn't see people on television (or radio back then) crying about "wrong war, wrong place, wrong time!" when we fought Germany.

People here in the forum will remain me that Hitler declared war on the United States and this is true. Those same people often forget that Islam declared war on us infidels with their jihad as well!

Thanks to all WWII vets and remember the 400,000 plus American lives that were lost defending our freedom's from the worst of both Germany and Japan.

 

I thank every veteran who ever served in any war. I thank them from the bottom of my heart.

Were it not for our veterans we wouldn't have the right to sit here and type our rants and raves.

We owe our veterans more than a salute. To all veterans, past and present, thank you for keeping us free.

 

I went to the Army/Navy football on Dec 7th, 1992. It was the 50th Aniv. of the attack and I went to the game with my Grandfather who was in WWII. He said that he hated that War but he enjoyed the game.

 

1992? Perhaps you mean 1991...

 

Never will...nor will I forget the men that fought in that war or any other war for our USA

Speedy

 

Forgive for the wrong year it's been a long day. Sorry about that.

 

One fact that is often glossed over is the utter cruelty of the Japanese at that time. Thanks for your contribution Dan.

 

On the contrairy, they were fighting a war to win. They were not watched over by a bunch of ACLU (or is it UCLA) people with a grudge against the military.
Even I will admit to this, and hold them no grudge.

 

I have an older Philipino friend who has stories, they were way out of line in Korea and China also.

 

My Old Man was a Marine Lt and based near Peking at the onset of the war. He narrowly escaped being captured cause he was onboard ship (supervising the unloading of cargo on 8 Dec 1941, international dateline) when it all started.

Many of his friends were captured and he never saw them again... He served in Korea and after 20+ years he retired and THEN got married, LOL. He was 45 yrs old when I was born and 47 when my little brother came along.

Bone

 

I do not know if Japan was a signatory to the Geneva Convention of 1929, I have my doubts. But the USSR and Germany were, and they committed similar attrocities against one another.

Let us not forget for one moment that the Japanese of WWII thought alongside their hateful brethren in Germany - that is they thought they were racially superior to anyone else. They thought they could dominate Asia and the Pacific and that they would enslave the rest of humanity in their grips. Just as Germany slaughtered people they thought inferior, similarly Japan engaged in the same behaviours with the Chinese, Koreans, Vietnamese etc.

In the end they got what they deserved. Anybody who for one second believes that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were too much should have lived during that time.

 

I have only one thing to say about this matter, and it is this: When you are fighting a war, you had better believe you are better in every way, than your enemy. Because if you don't, you have lost the battle before it even began. We Americans believed we were superior to ANY other fighting force on this planet. That included the British and Russians. I happen to believe we are still superior to any of them.

As I was alive during these events, and probably a lot closer than you would believe, and can make these assessments with some degree of accuracy. :kewl:

 

Thank You CoinOKC!
coinsngolf

 

What I was attempting to convey, there is a difference in thinking you are morally superior, to those that think they are ethnically superior. Believing you are morally superior, because you believe you are right is not a bad thing, but believing you are ethnically superior is reprehensible.

 

Am I to infer from what is being written here is that there is a moral equivalence between the actions of the Japanese in WWII and the Americans?

 

Not from me. Go back and read my original post in this thread. The vanquished in WWII got what was coming to them, they earned it.

 

Dad used to mention something about the "Boxer Protocol of 1901." Apparently this was suspposed to have been honored but it wasn't.

Bone

 

I think you bring up an important distinction. Back then, we were attacked by a foreign invader and the country, rightly so, rallied to the call because we knew for sure what we were fighting for. We had a very clear idea of the enemy and what we had to do.

Fast forward to today...We are the invaders of another country. We trumped up the justifications for the invasion that have since been proven false. And we are occupying another country years after we took it over. This is on top of the last unpopular war we fought in the 60's that was also escalated after a trumped up incident in the Gulf of Tonkin by the Johnson Administration.

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2261

So is it any wonder that people are more skeptical about wars these days? If you're not more skeptical, then you are not using your head. Comparing what we are experiencing today with what we went through during WWII is just a fool’s paradise. The people that were beaten, spit on, arrested, spied on, harassed, and demonized for protesting the Viet Nam war were right and within their rights to do so.

We currently have one of the most secretive administrations in our history and they are asking us to trust them. I'm all for rallying behind the fight on "terrorism" but I'd like to believe and trust the leaders in charge of that fight to - A. Be competent, B. Be truthful, and C. Don't undermine the troops doing their jobs by micro-managing the war from the White House.

 

You know if we threaten to drop the bomb on mecca if we are ever hit again, I think that would end the threat of terrorism against the USA.