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An event that profoundly changed world history, and will continue to effect history well into the foreseeable (and unforeseeable) future.
You are all familiar with seemingly normal things occurring, then the next day all Hell breaks out.
On the evening of December 6, 1941 the two young people who would become my parents went out on their first date.?ÿ The next day the entire world was in shock.
My father had already been rejected for service and was never called to serve.?ÿ He did work on the construction of an ordnance-production facility and two airports, though, in support of the war effort.?ÿ He also spent some timing working in a steel mill.
My father in law was a navy airplane mechanic on Guadalcanal after the US took it back. Zeros strafed it regularly and dropped some bombs for most of the time he was there.
Some time in the early 2000s, one of my twins bought a Mitsubishi SUV. His brother asked him how he could possibly buy a car from the company who made the airplanes that tried to kill his grandfather.
I left the room, so I don't know what happened next, but the dinner table was quiet.
Having been at Pearl recently for my son's memorial service, it was an odd experience to see the buildings that have not been repaired since that day, with bullet holes and broken glass.?ÿ?ÿ
Amongst the names of the crew is my dads cousin Bill, he was one of the ones captured and spent the rest of the war in a POW camp (probably not Stalag 13). Dad told me didn't talk about it much but when dad asked him how he was treated, he said the guards treated them with some respect, I don't recall if there was anything said about the officers. After Bill passed his daughter found letters and gave them to a family friend, here's the result:
