Most images of December 7, 1941, are of the USS Arizona blowing up in Pearl Harbor or President Roosevelt asking Congress to declare war. But perhaps the better depiction of the meaning of December 7 is this photo. It's the beach on Tarawa, and the dead are Americans.
Tarawa was one of the fiercest battles of the Pacific War. Such was the carnage, that American pilots found it hazardous to fly overhead, because they were literally sickened by the stench of death. The horrendous American casualty rate was attributed not only to the suicidal resistance of the Japanese defenders but to the poor strategic and tactical planning of the American military.
Yet, Americans persevered. They had been enraged by Japan's "dastardly attack" on Pearl and mobilized by real national leadership. If, as has been said, Americans have never liked long wars, then the political and military leadership were ruthless in prosecuting the war with that in mind. Most importantly, citizens were mobilized as participants, called upon to make sacrifices on the home front, as their soldiers made the supreme sacrifice on the field.
Contrast December, 1941, with September, 2001. Instead of FDR calling the nation to action, we had George W. Bush holding up a credit card, exhorting the nation to...shop. Thus mobilized, we "participated" as a passive audience, the horrors and wastes and foul-ups of all wars glibly conflated, by effete academics and pundits, with those of this war.
Meanwhile, heeding our leader's call,
we patriotically
shopped.
we patriotically
shopped.
Ours is a different breed of nation from that of 1941, as December 7 reminds us to our shame.
