Pearl Harbor remembrance. Really?

 

 

Why Bother?
(by R.P.Edwards)

We say the words
We bow the head
Give mind and homage
To honored…dead
But distant deeds
Reveal the way
A speaking that our words…won’t say
The truth?…despised
Our parents worth
Yes, those who bled
And saved…the earth
But today we’ll speak
And feign our due
But actions prove
It isn’t…true

Sixty-nine years ago, today, the planes came, the bombs dropped, the torpedoes sped, the bullets ripped, the ships blew up, and over twenty-four hundred “defenders”…died.  It is on this day we remember, and honor.  But I contend, alas, that we really only do…the former.

Maybe it’s the--of necessity--overtime I’ve been working (yes, I’m thankful to have a job), or the plethora of weights that responsible men must bear, but, with my observation of society as it is, and the direction our “handlers” want it to go, and also a cursory knowledge of who “we were”…back then, well, as up-beat, and thoughtful, and inspirational, and patriotic, as I should be on this “memorial” day, I find myself in a bit of a funk, and my words will reflect it.  I ask you to treat me as the sometimes melancholy uncle who comes to the celebration.  “He’s kind of a downer.  But he’s family.”

You see, from a variety of sources (including my parents) I know that after the bombs fell and the thousands died in the Hawaiian sun and, during the four subsequent years as another four hundred and fifty thousand Americans died; I know that public school teachers led those in their charge in prayer and perhaps an inspirational scripture reading to under-gird the tender that would have to grow up…before their time.  Many, who, as the war years lingered, would also don the uniform, and then go stain a foreign field…with liberties young blood. 

And, as many in high places, even this day, clamor that the modern military accept and honor behavior that most of the near half million fallen would have found abhorrent; and, as, this day, the God to whom those heroes prayed, and relied upon, and anchored their rightness in; as He is forbidden from taking His rightful, foundational place in the education of the young.  And, as, this day, thousands of unborn Americans are ripped to shreds in a “free” society that owes its very existence to the generation that couldn’t imagine such bestiality (until they visited the Nazi extermination camps).  This day, this writer finds our celebrations and remembrances of the saviors, at the very least…disingenuous. 

So, in somber conclusion: if we want to remember them, to honor them, to recognize who they were, and what they did…then, let’s strive to be more like them. 

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Here’s a link to the video, “The Stone.”  A song and photo montage which honors “The Greatest Generation.” The Stone

Also, I’ve been a bit occupied of late with another work.  This one is for those of the Christian faith who find themselves…in the test.  It’s titled, “To go Higher.”  To Go Higher

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