MEMORY’S FRAGILITY December 13, 2024

Last Saturday marked a momentous occurrence in American history, yet no one seemed to remember.

Perhaps you have to be at or near my age, 80, to commemorate December 7 as Pearl Harbor Day. On a Sunday morning in 1941, Japanese planes bombed the U.S. naval base in Honolulu, Hawaii, and nearby Army Air Force fields. They killed over 2,400 American servicemen and civilians. The next day, President Franklin D. Roosevelt obtained a declaration of war from Congress. 

On December 11, Germany, Japan’s “Axis” ally, declared war on the U.S. Millions of American isolationists, including supporters of the German-American Bund and the America First Committee, now had to support America’s war effort.

Although war had been raging in Europe and East Asia, the attack on Pearl Harbor showed Americans how delicate peace is. The assault came only 23 years after the armistice ending the Great War, to be known as World War One.

Yet I found no mention of December 7 in the media I check: San Francisco Chronicle, New York Times, CNN, CBS Evening News, or online. I was disappointed but not surprised.

Last month brought no mention of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. I was in college and remember. Like FDR’s December 7th “date that will live in infamy,” a pall cast over Dallas supposedly would last 50 years. It lifted quickly. While many Dallasites were not fans of JFK, the city did not commit the murder. As far as we know, a man named Lee Harvey Oswald did.

Memory is fragile. We file away people and events too painful to deal with. We’re also subject to forgetfulness and downright ignorance. But another factor plays a major role in erasing recollections of past events.

Horrible events keep plaguing us.

Not familiar with World War Two? Know about the “police action” in Korea? Before your time? Americans later fought in Vietnam. That faded from many memories with the Gulf War (1990–91); and Al Qaeda’s September 11 destruction of New York’s Twin Towers, attack on the Pentagon, and failed attack aimed at Washington, D.C. September 11 triggered long American wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Also, America suffered from “stagflation” in the 1970s when OPEC withheld oil, and gas prices soared. American industry crumbled in the face of Japanese and German imports. (Didn’t we defeat them?) A major financial crisis struck in 2008. In 2020, we confronted the Covid epidemic.

Other terrible events on my list: the Yom Kippur War of 1973; the First and Second Intifadas in Israel; January 6, 2021 in Washington, D.C.; and Hamas’ attack on Israel, October 7, 2023. One hundred hostages remain to be released, alive or dead.

The American philosopher George Santayana has been quoted ad nauseum: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Clichés often bear the seeds of truth.  

What Americans have experienced in my lifetime is new only in the details. Technology changes, but human nature, and the basics of individual and geopolitical relationships remain the same. Read the Hebrew Bible and Greek literature.

Only perspective—an understanding of all that has preceded us—will enable us possibly to forge a better future.

We can begin by shoring up our fragile individual and collective memories.

Please pass on this post. 

Order my new novel, TAKING STOCK (Kirkus Reviews starred selection) in softcover or e-book from Amazon, barnesandnoble.com or iuniverse.com. Or from your favorite bookstore.