PEARL HARBOR DAY 1999

low2go
*Senior Chief Moderator*
Posts: 351
(5/29/01 7:25:34 am)
Reply PEARL HARBOR DAY 1999
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FROM A DISTANCE--.
John Wilborn
kdialup109.phnx.uswest.net
Sat Dec 9 04:27:13


Thursday morning--Phoenix, Arizona--kids on the
street
where I live, waiting for the school bus to
come pick
them up for school. This neighborhood is about
twenty
years old--the last generation of kids
including my
grandsons have grown and moved on--a new
generation of
children now--life goes on. I went out and
placed the
flag in the hanger on my house--there was no
breeze--it
just hung open, unmoving. One of the
children--there were
about seven boys and girls--a boy called out
and asked
what today was--what the flag was for. They
were all
right at the end of my drive--so I walked over
to them.
"Today is Pearl Harbor Day", I explained
"it's a day for older folks like us to remember

because it was the start of a horrible war for
our
country--don't you know about it from your
school"?
There seemed to be a simultanous shaking of
heads--one
girl piped up that her Dad and Mom had gone to
Pearl
Harbor for their second honeymoon--one boy
turned and
scornfully remarked WHO CARES CINDY, and turned
back to
me as if questing for more information. I had
plenty of
time--hey, I had a captive audience. I went on
to explain
that the Japanese attacked the U.S. Navy
Pacific Fleet on
this date in 1941 at Pearl Harbor--the USS
Arizona had
been sunk with the heavy loss of life--that
here in
Arizona that date meant more maybe than other
places--and
that I had only been eight years old but how
well I
remembered it for many of the older boys from
my Iowa
school went into the service before
Christmas--many never
to return--killed in the service of their
country--so
very respectfully they listened--eyes like
dinner
plates--mouths agape--I suggested they tune
into
televisions HISTORY CHANNEL if it wasn't
tought about
those events in their schools. "What happened",

one the boys asked and I explained that many
thought it
was a war for the survival of our country
--that we were
also fighting Germany and Italay--that really
garnered
attention. "It was the World War #2--millions
perished--millions more effected somehow by
it's
evil"-----. The yellow school bus appeared
with the
warning lights flashing--the children didn't
seem to rush
off--in fact it seemed as if they were
undecided to leave
or not--as if they wanted me to tell them
more--the bus
waited in the middle of the street--several
cars waited
in back--a couple in the front--waited for the
kids to
board the bus. Finally they turned and headed
toward the
bus--I called out to them to look in on the
HISTORY
CHANNEL-- to look for those titled VICTORY AT
SEA--"they've always been my favorites", I told

them. Is it true that the schools are curtaied
from
teaching about WW II--how can that be--I still
recall
being tought about the Battle of Hastings in
1066--between the French and the English---a
continent
away--can there be such a thing as sorting out
priorities?
Wilborn sends.








Edited by: high2fly at: 5/29/02 6:55:52 am