…but enough about the birth of my older brother.
It is also happens to be Pearl Harbor day and there are still a few fellows who have unpleasant memories of the day:
Dabrowski is one of more than 15 Pearl Harbor survivors known to be living in the Rochester area. Some share a strong conviction that this date has a lesson of great relevance today — that a nation must be ever vigilant — and that the carnage of Dec. 7 in Hawaii is an unsettling reminder of the horrors of war.
Dabrowski was stationed on one of the battleships — the USS Maryland, which was hit by bombs but ready for a return to service in less than three months.
Now 92, Dabrowski’s recollection of the past has faded somewhat with time. But the shock of seeing 181 Japanese fighters and dive bombers fill the skies remains a haunting memory.
This began America’s official entry into World War II. My father, my father in law and most of my male relatives of his age fought in that war.
It was a war that we were unofficially aiding the allies before the first bomb dropped, a war where we had as one ally a government that was not only corrupt but even more murderous than the Nazi’s and a war that changed both the Germans and the Japanese who 65 years later STILL have American Troops on their shores.
How would the history of the last six decades be different if the same debates over the war and the same “morality” that those who are in a rush to leave where we are fighting now where in power back then?
Would Germany and Japan have re-armed and looked for revenge? Would there have been a 3rd world war with actual fighting rather than the cold version we fought?
There is a cost to American dominance and sometimes it’s annoying, but there is also a serious benefit that people forget. If we decide as a nation we will no longer pay it, we will enjoy both the savings and the costs of that decision.
