Tuesday, December 7, 2010

We should always remember

I guess every generation really does have that one catastrophic event for which every person remembers exactly where they were when it occurred.

For my generation, it is and always will be the destruction of the World Trade Centers in lower Manhattan on September 11, 2001 (I was at a bakery in Upper Montclair, New Jersey, and I saw the smoke from the towers as I drove home that morning, in case you wondered). I don't think I've ever fully processed that day, and I try not to write much about it because I'm afraid that, even all these years later, I'll sound like a complete sap.

Other events, like the assassinations of John F. Kennedy or Martin Luther King, Jr., have stuck with my parents' generation, and always will.

For my grandparents' generation, it was the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Sixty-nine years ago today. Hard to believe it was so long ago, and that a whole generation of people who remember that day ("which will live in infamy forever") is rapidly dying. Soon, within the next decade or two, I imagine, very few people will be left.

Hard to imagine.

Especially when photographs like this still exist, and if a picture can a thousand words, I'd estimate these say millions. They are equal parts disturbing and impressive, upsetting and awe-inspiring. Take a look - especially check out the one which shows reporters running to phone their editors, every one of them thrilled to have such a scoop. It's a pretty interesting juxtaposition, no?

Anyway, that's what's been on my mind today. Pearl Harbor Day.

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