December 7th, Pearl Harbor, 71 years ago.

I love history.  I love history more than I could ever explain.  It runs deep through my veins, it's a huge part of who I am.  All things history related will give me the chills.  It will take me back through time and I swear I can hear and feel everything that was going on.  One of my favorite things to do is walking through cemeteries.  I love to feel the history there, wondering what their lives were like, wondering what they saw and experienced during their time period.  My Netflix "recently watched" list would make ya laugh.  Documentaries.  Lots and lots of documentaries.

I know you can't know your future without knowing your past.  Knowing your past is everything.  Embracing your past is everything.  It's what I want to make my life's work about.  I could never, ever get enough history.  I woke up this morning and my very first thought was, "December 7th.  Pearl Harbor."  Every December 7th I have an extremely serious mood about me.  It's so hard not to think of what happened.  The surprise of the attack, the screaming, the wounded, the panic, the fear.  I can only imagine it felt like the end of the world.  The mothers who never left their radios, knowing their sons were stationed in Hawaii.  The wives who frantically waited to see if their husbands were coming home or not.  The soldiers and sailors, at 7:55 a.m. that morning.  It was a beautiful, sunny, Sunday morning.  What an absolutely shocking morning.  Just waking up, maybe eating a lazy breakfast, never imagining they were minutes away from entering a world war.  Imagine waking up to see this:

This is absolutely horrifying.

Read the following story of COL Mildred Irene Clark, an Army nurse anesthetist stationed at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii at the time of the attack:

 "Loud explosions awakened me and I heard planes overhead. I opened the door and saw planes coming through the [Kole Kole] pass in the mountains between Honolulu and Schofield. The large bright insignia of the rising sun was boldly on the side of each plane. They flew so close I could hear the radio communications between the pilots. In one minute I dressed and ran to the hospital.

"The hospital was hit, even though the hospital building had a large red cross painted on the roof....Casualties were arriving on stretchers as I reported to the operating room, with ambulance siren wailing in the background. In a short time, the nine operating rooms were extremely busy, while patients waited for care in the corridor. I kept hearing planes overhead, but we were too busy to be afraid or to ask what was happening. All day and into the evening I went from one patient to the next without sitting down or having a cup of coffee. Someone brought fried chicken in but few of us felt hungry, as we had seen too much death and were involved with the most serious wounds and bravest of men. Patients had arms and legs amputated, severe chest and spinal wounds, abdominal and cranial wounds. Many wanted to go out and fight back. Some wanted a prayer said or to hear the 23rd Psalm, and we obliged them along with the surgical procedures....Sometime near early morning following the attack, several of us had the opportunity for a quiet moment to talk to each other and exchange our limited knowledge of what had happened."

 How can you not feel the horror?  The fear?  Can't you feel the heat from the explosions?  The screaming, the panic?

Imagine you've only heard rumors so far and then you wake up and see this plastered on  your newspaper.

 I have nothing but reverence and respect every December, 7th.  I cannot help but feel the pain for those individuals and for our country at the time.  For the more than 2,500 lives lost and over 1,000 wounded.

Thank you to the soldiers, sailors, nurses, and of course the natives during this time.  Thank you to the people they became.  To the men and women that would end the war of wars.  To end the reign of perhaps the worlds most evil dictator.  To end the suffering of millions of people.  As a descendant of holocaust survivors, I cannot say thank you enough.  Thank you for your bravery and sacrifice that lead the world to a better and safer place.

We will not forget!