Sunday, December 7, 2008

Pearl Harbor 68 Years Later

December 7, 1941 is a day which shall live in infamy. On that day, we Americans were attacked by Japan. Thinking about that day, and the consequences of those attacks (basically it is why we finally joined WWII) I wonder what would have happened to the course of history if Japan did not attack us? Would we still have joined the fight against Hitler on the European front? Would we have remained out of the Pacific? And, if we had remained out of the Pacific, would that have prevented other nations have becoming nuclear?

Life is full of "what-ifs" and, as Aslan says (in Prince Caspian)"It is not for us to know what would have happened." Who knows how events would have unfolded as they did. Regardless, I still like to think that our country would have done the right thing and joined in the fight.

As much as each military life loss and disability is, there is a reason that we go to war, and WWII was justified. It sucks that issues sometimes have to be resolved through war, but there are times when war is the only answer. Hitler had to be disposed of. He was evil and his evil infected many other people that helped him. His brand of evil caused the deaths of millions in camps, and way too many on the battlefield.

Another person who had to go is Saddam. He was evil as well. It doesn't matter if you think that the Iraq conflict was justified, I think you will agree that S.H. was an evil guy and it is good that is no longer with us.

I wish the Iraq War was going differently, that none of our soldiers had to sacrifice limb or life. But, I'm glad that they are over there, getting rid of people that would love to do deal evil on America. Much like the Japanese they brought this on themselves. America will not just let herself be attacked. The radical Muslims brought this on themselves. And by being over there, out military has done much to protect the homeland and keep them away from us.

We, here at home become complacent because we have not been attacked again. We don't hear on the news all the terror plots that have been thwarted. We will never know the plans that were aborted because we killed the players.

Just as we will never know how things would have played out if Japan hadn't attacked us, or if we had chosen to retaliate in a different way, we will never know just how many terror attacks have been prevented because our military has taken the fight to the Sandbox and Afghanistan.

As I think about it all and play the "what-if" game I'm thankful to live in America and to live in a country where we don't just accept an attack on our soil as fate. We do something about it, always have!

-Paige-

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