Quick! What is the “date which will live in infamy?” Here is a hint: It was a day in which thousands of Americans died after an attack by airplanes.
Some of you will be able to name the event, but won’t recall the date, despite the famous quote from the president. Here is another hint: It isn’t September 11, 2001.
The infamous date referenced by President Franklin D. Roosevelt was December 7, 1941, and will have its 70th anniversary this year. It remains to be seen whether Japan’s attack at Pearl Harbor will be recalled in the same manner as this week’s observation of the ten years that have passed since the attack on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, with television specials and events at the site.
2,402 men died in the surprise attack on the Hawaiian naval base, the event that launched the US involvement in World War II. The primary legacy of the attacks on 9-11 – as we’ve come to call it – is the removal of pointy things from our carry-on luggage and dramatic pat-downs and scans at the airport. The US bombed Iraq in retaliation before discovering that country had nothing to do with the Trade Center attack.
President George Bush declared “Mission Accomplished” a good while before anything even resembling that status was near. President Barack Obama announced the death of Osama bin Laden – the international terrorist who plotted the airliner assault – as a result of a US commando raid.
The innocents who died in the surprise attacks on the US structures ten years ago are named in a memorial at the scene of the tragedy, and some group will likely read all the names aloud for effect. In an age of technological instant-documentation, there are new images of the event surfacing at regular intervals. There are a few recordings of the 1942 surprise attack but are generally relegated to the high-tier cable channels.
It is said that time heals all wounds. Perhaps the ten-year marking of the 9-11 attacks will begin the process on this generation’s infamous date.
