Seventy two years ago, never forget.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAnOtWm5OrM
A survivor on the USS Arizona reflects:
Navy veteran Louis Conter was a young sailor standing watch on the quarterdeck of the USS Arizona when Japanese bombers swarmed the skies over Oahu and attacked the U.S. Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor 69 years ago.
Within minutes that Sunday morning, the Arizona itself had exploded in flames, smoke and pandemonium. Conter was among the fortunate few hundred men to get off alive as the battleship crumpled and sank at its berth, taking 1,177 of its 1,400-member crew to their deaths.
The loss of life aboard the Arizona accounted for nearly half of the 2,390 Americans who perished at Pearl Harbor and other attack sites on the island on December 7, 1941, the day that drew the United States’ into World War Two.
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I believe that I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost, but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us.
Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory, and our interests are in grave danger.
With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph — so help us God. December 8, 1941, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt
