Day of Infamy: A Lesson And A Challenge ... J. D. Longstreet

Day of Infamy: A Lesson And A Challenge
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
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My personal journey to becoming a conservative began at Pearl Harbor. My philosophy on politics had its birth on the morning of December 7th, 1941.

It was a beautiful Sunday morning in Paradise when ......... ......... .........

Around 8 AM, (70) years ago today, the Japanese swooped in, out of a brilliant blue sky over Hawaii, and bombed the port of Pearl Harbor to smithereens. Much of the muscle of our Navy was destroyed

By midday, over 2,400 Americans were dead, 1,200 more wounded, seven of our finest, largest, and most powerful warships were bombed, torpedoed,  and sunk --at anchor in the harbor -- while even more were damaged, over 300 American aircraft were bombed, strafed, and destroyed or damaged -- while still on the ground -- and a plethora of other ships and military facilities were either damaged or wiped-out completely.

“Four days after the Pearl Harbor attack, Italy and Germany declared war on the United States. German submarine attacks commenced on American shipping in the Atlantic. Germans found easy pickings off our East Coast cities at night, as the blaze of city lights silhouetted merchant ships.

… within the coming weeks, American and British bases and territories throughout the Pacific fell -- Guam, Wake Island, the Philippines, Singapore, and others (fell). For our nation, each week brought a fresh defeat.”  SOURCE:  http://www.eagletribune.com/opinion/x2120612176/Editorial-Day-of-Infamy-was-crucible-that-proved-nations-strength/print

It was a terrifying time.

I was seven months old.

In the next four years, as my consciousness grew, I became aware of all the activity around me. I saw soldiers in uniform. I saw my grandmother crying when the telegram came that her baby boy had been "Killed in Action" somewhere in Europe.

And finally, I remember guns being fired into the air, people running through the streets of our little South Carolina town, hugging and kissing each other. I remember folks saying: “It’s over!” And it was. But it left an indelible mark on my family and an even deeper mark on me.

Those first 4 years of my life, the formative years, were experienced under intense stress. I learned the cost of war right from the beginning stages of my life. I lost one uncle, in Belgium (the Ancestral homeland) another was machine gunned through both thighs and lay in a freezing stream in France, all night, until American troops found him the next morning. The icy water of that frozen stream saved his life. He suffered ”shell-shock” (referred to as "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder" today) the remainder of his life. A summertime thunderstorm became an instant German artillery barrage. He would race for cover. The flashbacks were ever with him.

Others of my family were in the Pacific fighting the Japanese. They, too, came home with stories of Japanese Kamikaze planes hitting their ships and, in one case, finding the pilot alive.  For whatever reason, the plane with the bomb attached, did not explode.

When we could get those veterans to talk, which was not often, I was spellbound by the stories of their experience. I soaked it up like a sponge.

You see, I learned, both from personal experience, and the second hand experience of my family members, who were in the hell of the Second World War, what war really is. And, I learned that you have no choice when the enemy brings the war to your doorstep, you must fight back, and you must prevail, no matter the cost.

I don’t suffer fools lightly. My generation shares that quality. Today we have people in our government who are advocating a policy of retreat for the United States in our war against terrorists in the Middle East. It does not seem to matter to those folks that an enemy, which has brought war to our shores, will not quit, and go home, just because we do. They will follow us back to our own country and continue to wage war against us here... in our land.

Had the United States listened to the “doves” after Pearl Harbor, I would most likely be writing this missive in German rather than English. It was that serious then, and it is that serious now.

So, as we think, today, of the men and women who gave everything they had, including their lives, to insure that you and I would have a free country, let us think of the men and women serving today for the same reason.

On December 7th, 1941 the Japanese, and the Germans, wanted nothing less than the conquest of the world. 

But there is yet another war raging in America today, even as I pen these few words. It is a quiet insurrection.   The socialist are pressing their advantage in our government toward their ultimate goal of a Socialist/Marxist America. 

Since that fateful day, 72 years ago, much has changed about America.  Americans themselves have changed.  Seventy-two tears ago Americans knew what freedom was/is.  They understood its value. They inherently understood that it must be protected and insured for the generations to come.  There was no question they would fight. 

On Monday morning, December 8th, 1941, and the week(s) that followed, long lines of young men, and some not so young, formed up at the doors of military recruiting offices.  Some lines were many city blocks long.  All over this nation, Americans stepped up ready, willing, and eager to “do their part” to stop the evil that threatened their beloved country -- and the world.

They joked with each other, while in line, of what they would, personally, do to the enemy.  But beneath the laughter and the irreverent exterior, deep down inside each one of them, lay the cold determination to fight and win, the icy resolve to do whatever it took to protect his home and hearth, and yes, there was that flicker of fear that every man feels when he deliberately lays his future, indeed, his life, on the alter of freedom.

It cannot be argued they were anything less than patriots. 

They fought a war that wrapped around the globe. In four years they fought and won a global war!  Today we wage wars for ten or twelve years, without winning, and finally drag our exhausted troops home.

As I said above, America has changed—Americans have changed.

America’s most dangerous enemy today is a domestic movement to fundamentally change America from a constitutional representative republic to a socialist dung heap.   And the socialists are winning.

America desperately needs men and women of the caliber of those men who formed up outside recruiting offices on December 8th, 1941. 

Our nation is under attack.  Our freedom is under attack, our privacy is under attack.  Our constitution, itself, is under attack.  We, as a county, are in every bit as much danger as we were on the Sunday morning in December of 1941.  But the enemy is not swooping in from some blue, sun bright, sky.  No.  They are already among us, in the top echelons of our government.

More to be feared is the enemy within, than the enemy without.

America was once a nation of lions.  Now American sheep are in abundance while there is a decided dearth of lions.  One could even say: There is an acute insufficiency of leadership for the sheep.

There is no longer time for debate.  That can come, if necessary, later.  Now we must be about saving The Republic.

A few of the veterans of that global war are still with us today.  How their hearts must ache to witness how easily their progeny has allowed America to fall within the grasp of the Socialists/Marxists.

You have to ask yourself… as an American… are you going to stand down, ground your weapon, and allow this evil from the deepest, darkest, depths of hell, to take your country? That is the question all Americans must ask themselves.

The Men and Women (Caps Intentional) of 1941 had to ask themselves the same question. We had better thank Almighty God they answered in the affirmative.

Today, we honor them for it. But they will tell you, those who survive to this day, that there was no real question about what the people of America would do. It was simply understood that freedom was far too precious to allow the forces of evil to take it from us. And so they marched forth to stop it and preserve this country for you and me. And they did!

We can never thank them enough. Not only did they save America, they saved the world!

Are we, as Americans, prepared to give up our freedom today after that generation gave so much of their blood to preserve it for us?

I pray to God that America will finally awaken to the danger that threatens us and take the painful steps, whatever they might be, to preserve this country, and again, the world.

We have one year until we go to the polls again.  Make no mistake:  This is the LAST chance we have to save our constitution, our republic, our freedom, and our liberty.  We MUST purge our government of the Socialists and Marxists who are determined to remake America into a communist utopia.

Today's anniversary of the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor should serve as a reminder that those who went before us knew not only the value of freedom, and the cost of freedom, they were willing to pay the price for freedom for you and me.  And they did it in that which is dearer than any treasure -- their blood.

In the face of their sacrifice -- for us -- are we really prepared to give it all away to the elitist tyrants now in charge of our government?   

© J. D. Longstreet