Infamy redressed?

The writer was an 18-year-old sophomore in college when the naval and air forces of Japan made their dastardly attack on Pearl Harbor without justification or warning. Living in Washington, D.C., in that year of 1941, I felt I was in the midst of matters spinning out of control, because of which my life would never again be the same.

Any thinking youngster knew that the events in Europe would never be confined to the continent and every patriotic one felt the need to serve his country. Silently and without fanfare, my generation enlisted by the millions, eager and ready to follow our Commander-in-Chief to hell and back to secure the inevitable victory.

We had little sense of party or political matters. We were -- and are -- red-blooded Americans who have never forgotten Dec. 7 as a day of infamy. Victory was long in coming, but it was complete and glorious. And our lives --- all of us --- have never been the same.

The years and decades have brought forth generations of this beloved land who have remembered Pearl Harbor which started "the good war." There is no such thing we can find to believe that notion. It was hell -- and we did come back remembering our shipmates who gave their all in winning it.

Later this month we commemorate the birthday of the Prince of Peace. He knows that war is mankind's free will gone far astray. There is no evidence that the fault is in the stars or inevitable outcome of failed diplomacy. War is murder and it is humanity's creation --- it is his hateful alliance with whatever devils there are to turn us away as Christmastide in total denial that calls it only a "holiday" they hope are "happy," ignoring the dying and dead youngsters who know nothing more than they are in harm's way because of a politician's unforgettable blunder.

War is always hell. The word "infamy" has never been redressed since that horrendous Sunday morning at Pearl.