On the recordDecember 6, 2011
on December 7, 70 years ago, just before 8 in the morning local time, the first wave of 183 Japanese imperial aircraft descended upon the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor. A second wave of 170 aircraft followed to make sure that as much damage was done as possible. Within 2 hours, this unwarranted act of aggression left four U.S. Navy battleships, three cruisers, three destroyers, an anti aircraft training ship, one minelayer and 188 U.S. aircraft destroyed. The attack left devastation and havoc in its wake, taking the lives of 2,402 Americans and wounding 1,282. The Imperial Japanese Navy conducted this attack in order to limit U.S. military intervention capabilities in respect to Japanese imperial ambitions in the Pacific arena. On that day that President Roosevelt so aptly said would ``live in infamy,'' the Japanese Empire left something behind amongst the smoldering ruins of our Navy. They left behind a unified people in which they ``awakened the beast.'' Out of the ashes of Pearl Harbor was reborn an even stronger American Navy, economy, and people. For the younger generations of today, Pearl Harbor was a remote event in an era long gone. But to people like Army PFC. Merle Berdine, of Valparaiso, IN, who was sitting in the warm Hawaiian sunshine in front of his barracks at Fort Kamehameha that fateful Sunday morning, this act of aggression was an attack on the present.…
