When you are a United States Navy Sailor stationed in Hawaii, you are forever linked to the history of valor our shipmates endured during December 7, 1941.
Sunday, December 7, 1941, the U.S. Military forces on the island of Oahu woke up to a surprise attack by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service. The main target was the U.S. Navy Fleet in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. 2403 military and civilians were killed during the attack. This event became the catalyst for the United States of America to enter World War II (WWII).
Remember Pearl Harbor
It has been 82 years since that Sunday morning. It would be several decades before any readers would have been born when this attack took place. I was stationed in Pearl Harbor for three years in the early stages of my military career. Even back then, you could still see the palpable reminders of the horrors from that day. This humbling and sobering feeling has been with me ever since. It is very different when you are walking through the same areas where these brave souls fought back.
War is hell. Aside from the obvious – it is also because the adversary gets dehumanized. People who have feelings, parents, loved ones, goals, and dreams – they become targets. Most times anonymous targets, just another number destined to be eliminated. Contrary to popular belief, military forces are put in place not to make war, but rather to prevent war. I know, it sounds counterintuitive, but we’ll speak more about that shortly.
I cannot speak, nor would I dare to speak for the Pearl Harbor Veterans, and for all those who were front and center during that day. But I can very well talk as a person who wears the cloth of the United States of America for two decades. Any military person I’ve met can attest that there is an inseparable bond between people who have answered the call of duty. And the sacrifices made by our siblings in service during this attack are indescribable, and we owe them a debt of gratitude. Their lessons and legacy still resonate today.
On that morning, the entire fleet moored in Pearl Harbor was still asleep. It was a Sunday morning, or as we call it holiday routine. Giving the Sailors a well-deserved chance to have a little bit of rest from the otherwise hectic and laborious days. While many slept, others stood watch guarding their sleep. The attack was meant to catch these Sailors and other uniformed military and civilians by surprise while they were least able to respond.
It was this rude awakening of epic proportions what ultimately caused the United States of America to enter WWII. Until then, although the world had been at war for several years, the United States had maintained its distance. But with the adversarial powers invading the world, this unprovoked attack was something that would start a chain of events and battles, which eventually resulted in the first nuclear detonation as a matter to stop the war. Fast forward several decades, and now we are once again at the potential brink of war.
Back then the USA did not start WWII, but it was the country that ended it. But the cost for that victory continues to this day in ways that were likely unimaginable back then.
Historical Image from attack to Pearl Harbor in 1941
Lessons from Pearl Harbor – Today
Most of us are familiar with the bravery and aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Some people might be surprised to hear that at the time of the attack Hawaii was not yet officially part of the United States, as a state. Hawaii became the 50th state to join to join the United States of America on August 21, 1959. That is 18 years after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
The row for Hawaii to become a state is a very complex story, and the history is quite contentious. Therefore, I will write about it at a different time. But keep a pin on that thought because the key factor that I want you to realize is strategy of the highest order. In warfare, and strategic (as world-countries) planning, geography is a key element. Much like if you are playing a board game such as chess – the geographical disposition and everything that is included in that geography is much like that board game.
During WWII the Japanese Emperor and his Flag Officers very much understood that concept. For anybody who is familiar with warfare and wargaming, this will be perhaps a basic concept, but not an elementary one. In other words, this is a base where other strategies are built upon. Where am I going with all this? WWII is over, the ideology that was behind WWII has not yet surrendered. The faces of the adversaries might have changed, since foes are today allies – and vice versa.
However, authoritarian ideologies have perdured and especially lately they have been gaining a lot of traction. There is plenty of exploitative money and power in misinformation, and this is nothing new. The difference is that today we should be able to understand the difference – because before the flow of information was very much curtailed in the past. Today, we have an oversaturation of information mixed with rampant falsehoods disguised as facts. There are entire industries built on that misinformation flow.
Today’s currency is attention. And attention can be misdirected in ways that can either galvanize a segment of the population that is prone to action, and entice another large segment to stay idle, and satisfied about being manipulated (for some even wittingly if they considered it futile to even try to change that reality). But the great majority of people live their lives as though they are free – when in reality that freedom is very relative to what has been normalized as adequate in their existence.
With some of my fellow analysts in uniform we were asking ourselves the following questions: Has World War III (WWIII) started, and we are not yet aware of it? As we look at the current young generation of Sailors and uniformed members (both from the USA and allied), we ask ourselves. Are there any WWIII veterans in this room, ship, unit or wherever else and they don’t yet know it? We were asking ourselves these questions years ago. And it does not take a doctorate degree to see how the instability has accelerated so much in the last several months.
And for us to understand if WWIII has already started, it is a good way to ask ourselves, when did WWII start? That is a trick question, because it started on a different date, depending on where you were or lived at the time. For us in the United Sates of America it started in 1941 when Pearl Harbor was attacked. Yet the world was already in the path from war in the 1920’s very shortly after World War I (WWI) ended in 1918. And yes, WWI was the catalyst for WWII. So, what does that mean for WWIII?
WWII started in full swing for Great Britain well before the start of the war was officially noted as September 1, 1939, when [at the time] Nazi Germany invaded Poland. Even though it is officially articulated that Britain declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939. But it would be extremely naïve to think that Great Britain was not anticipating this situation from occurring. Although not everybody in power in Britain agreed that this was a problem, there were enough who were tracking what later became obvious to the world.
Seeing indicators that are escalating at the geopolitical level should not be surprising for anybody that I am bringing them up – I have been talking about these indicators for years. Fortunately, it seems that my words are getting more traction, thanks to you my beloved readers. Half Life Crisis has readers now in 80 countries spanning every continent except for Antarctica. Which is good, because WWIII would very much affect the entire world, even if it was only a few who nuked at each other. That is what we are trying to prevent, by the way.
But to give you some perspective for what I mean. Let us say for example that if two countries with a smaller arsenal – won’t name names for this example but here are the nine countries with nuclear weapons as I type this. The United States, Russia, France, China, the United Kingdom, Pakistan, India, Israel, and North Korea.
If any or a few of these escalated to nuclear conflict, the entire world would be destroyed very soon after the initial target area was vaporized. Why? Because of the nuclear fallout, the nuclear winter, the plumes of radioactive dust clouds going far and wide, and of course the actual radiation and potential escalation of force based on geopolitical issues. There are no winners. That is what MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) became a key deterrence during the Cold War. The problem is that a lot of nations are very much escalating their rhetoric inviting the use of nuclear weapons. If that ever-growing reality does not wake people up, I don’t know what could.
But no, the rhetoric does not start with nukes. It has already been ramping up steadily and increasing traction in the last several years. Unfortunately, much like it was before WWII a lot of people were blissfully unaware of it, or willfully ignorant for that matter. Afterall, WWI was supposed to be the war to end all wars. That happened, right? Multinational wars, other than WWII had been fought several years after WWII officially ended on August 14, 1945 when Japan surrendered after the nuclear strikes in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
This weapon was so horrific that it stopped the conflict in its tracks. However, the current nuclear weapons would make those strikes against Japan dwarfed by the destruction capable in todays’ arsenals. How big is that explosion? Well picture this – look out the window and see how high the highest jet-airliner is flying. The mushroom cloud was significantly higher during the strike in Hiroshima. Today the most destructive mushroom cloud would be about four times higher than that…. Which of course means that it would be a lot larger on the ground – and all that mushroom cloud fallout will also kill you and everyone you ever loved in the most agonizing manner. And you cannot outrun it because the radioactive blast moves at about the speed of light.
When Pearl Harbor was attacked there were a lot of failures in the dissemination of critical information to prevent the catastrophe. If we had but a millimetric fraction of the capabilities we have today to ascertain indicators, they would have not had a reason to be surprised. Yet today’s weapon in the adversarial arsenal is not merely curtailing critical information, but the one they get for free and effortlessly – their adversarial willful ignorance. And in case you did not realize it yet, we are considered the adversary to nations that do not particularly like us. That is some food for thought.
The sacrifices and remembrances are not only supposed to be a solemn moment to stop in silence, for some to offer a prayer perhaps. It is a lot more than that. We owe a lot more to every person who lost or gave their lives with valor, to include those who were caught off guard. There were indicators that could have prevented this from happening – even back then, but as I said, we have learned a lot since that day. So, there is no excuse today for not understanding the impact of our actions or lack thereof, and how that plays in the great scheme of things.
I cannot think of a better way to honor our fallen men and women in Pearl Harbor, and the subsequent horror that engulfed the world for the next four years after the attack. The world was already at war several years prior to the attack against Pearl Harbor. Some people around the world even back then thought that it was “somebody else’s problem” – yet the war did reach every corner of the world, not just the battle grounds. I remember my grandmother telling me how the war affected and destroyed lives all the way down in Ecuador when she was a child. And South America is nowhere near where the battles were fought.
As I sit here reflecting on Pearl Harbor, I want to invite you to think about the lessons learned we have received ever since. Every time you hear divisive rhetoric, speeches that dehumanize others, partisan politics, and party loyalty over substance, demagogs clamoring for attention by means of discriminating against any segment of the population, etc. Remember that those were indicators that WWII was nearing its critical starting point – we can prevent that type of dark history from repeating… together. HLC