Going through my mother’s scrapbook containing so many things surrounding the attack on Pearl Harbor where she was at the time, it seems only a short time ago to memory this catastrophic event took place. And mom’s scrapbook is a kind of time machine transporting me back to that time still so alive to my memory.

Immediately following the attack on Pearl Harbor my grandparents tried to contact my mother. But there had been no way for the folks and my mother to communicate since all telephone and radio usage was committed to the military and strictly controlled. America was now at war, and everything in our lives would now revolve around and be subservient to that ugly fact.

Eventually the folks were allowed to send an RCA Radiogram to my mother, but that was not until nine days following the attack, then there were the additional anxious days awaiting a reply. I recall my grandparents crying with relief when a message finally arrived and we learned that though she had been injured in the attack my mother was alive.

Transport for my mother back here was extremely difficult to arrange. But eventually she was assigned to a ship, the S.S. President Taft of the Matson Line, and returned safely though the threat of being sunk by Japanese submarines was foremost in all of our minds. The instructions to passengers aboard the ship were quite detailed warning about things like not throwing anything in the water since any such items, even scraps of paper might be picked up by a Japanese submarine and betraying the presence of the ship.

I look at the Radiogram in mom’s scrapbook, the menu she saved along with those instructions to passengers aboard the ship, the form she had to fill out before being assigned transport, the many photos and artifacts before and after the attack she included in the scrapbook, some showing the beauty of the Islands and the beauty of her life there, and some declaring how drastically and suddenly her life was changed because of the attack. One photo showing her wearing a gas mask really spoke volumes of the change.

It seemed no time at all following the attack on Pearl Harbor we began to see those small flags with blue stars in the windows of homes throughout Little Oklahoma declaring some loved one in the service, soon to begin displaying gold stars declaring the death of a loved one. In no time at all we children were buying war stamps in school, contributing to scrap drives and rationing began to impact our lives. Our comic books and the funny papers, the cartoon matinees at the Nile and Fox theaters had Bugs Bunny and others doing their bit against the Axis Powers.

On one occasion, we children at Mt. Vernon Elementary had bought enough war stamps to purchase a Jeep. The Californian and the school decided it would be a good idea to take a photo of the Jeep on the steps of the school. But it was to be taken with a couple of children in military uniform sitting in the Jeep. However, the children attending Mt. Vernon at the time were largely from dirt poor communities where parents were hard pressed to provide proper clothing for their children to even attend school, let alone those “cute” diminutive military uniforms in which those better off would often dress their children, my brother Ronnie and I being among these. And so it was that Ronnie and I were in that Jeep on the steps of the school for the picture appearing in the Californian.

I have quite a few pictures of Ronnie and me as children in military uniforms of the Army and Navy, and we loved dressing up like real soldiers and sailors. So I am qualified by experience to speak and write of many things surrounding WWII, things you will not find in most textbooks purporting to address that time in our history.

But even after all these years there are things our government has not allowed to see the light of day concerning WWII, and even I don’t know the extent to which my grandparents were involved, things like their association with the FBI at the time, things involving “important” people in Kern County and their associations with the black markets and espionage to which my grandparents were privy. I do recall one attempt on their lives when at a hotel in San Francisco. The FBI had arranged this “safe” place in order for them to give testimony in one case, but as a child the details of this were kept from me. And of course there are no written accounts available apart from those buried by the government like so many other things of that extremely dangerous period of our history. And as with the “disappearance” of the Ark of the Covenant in the film continues to be hidden from public view by our Federal Triune Dictatorship.

The recent arrest for espionage of Muslims in Bakersfield remind me of what my grandparents were dealing with during WWII. The enemies of America are always close at hand, not just in far off lands.

As a child I didn’t understand why grandad was given such unique status as the powers in Kern County appointing him a “Special Deputy Sheriff.” In retrospect it made sense because it was dangerous to send regular deputies into Little Oklahoma, and because of grandad being a preacher and without any taint of prejudice or bigotry he was the only Caucasian acceptable to the large Negro community to the north of us.

But could there have been more to the story? I’m sure there was. It was a dangerous time in America and “unconventional means” were being demanded in order to meet the dangers we faced as a nation at that time. In the case of my grandparents there was the very real threat to them through my brother and me. One way for the enemy to reach parents, or in this case grandparents is through their children. Ronnie and I couldn’t understand some of the precautions taken by our grandparents for our safety that resulted in so much travel around the country by train at the time, especially when such travel was being severely restricted for the war effort. And there were the posters everywhere asking “Is This Trip Necessary?”

Will it come to this because of the “war on terrorism” that Muslims will attack the real Achilles heel of those in power through their children? Are those in that mosque near you holding planning sessions how best to kidnap Bush’s children or the children or grandchildren of those in Congress? All the while attention is being given screening in airports is the danger far closer to home for those in power? Of this I have no doubt, those in power are extremely vulnerable to such a thing, and there can be no doubt our enemies will find willing accomplices in places like Mexico to effect such a thing as kidnappings.

We faced many real threats to America here at home during WWII. As a child I couldn’t possibly be aware of many of these threats; for example I couldn’t know why my grandparents took such extraordinary measures at times to protect my brother and me. All I knew there were times when my play was severely restricted, and impromptu trips around the country interfered with the lives of Ronnie and me.

Now I can understand why those internment camps were essential during WWII. You never knew who might be an enemy among the Japanese here in America, but we did understand and know Remember Pearl Harbor! And I have cause to remember it better than many others. We are in no better condition now with the mosques in America, all of which teach hatred of America and the “infidels” and are a breeding ground and safe haven for terrorists. And from experience I know it will only take one singular terrorist attack like that nuclear bomb being set off here to witness all Muslims being rounded up and those internment camps to once more appear in America along with our military in force along every inch of our borders.

The speeches will be made, politicians will pander unashamedly attempting to trade on 9/11, and all the while our borders remain open to any and all terrorists that want to do us harm. Caesar Bush will be telling us how much “safer” he has made America and the despicable white trash Clinton will keep howling about The Path to 9/11. But what will be missing is anything of a substantive nature done by politicians to ensure another 9/11 does not occur. Each will be posturing, pandering and prostituting themselves for votes, none will do what is best for America that will risk the “Latino vote” or secure our borders.

Certainly the parallel is plain between those like the president of Iran and Hitler, the parallel between WWII and what we are facing now is plain. But unlike the attack on Pearl Harbor that galvanized America and caused us to come together and unite as a nation to defeat the Axis powers, we are a fragmented and divided nation because of unscrupulous people in power that have led us to this dismal condition, emasculating us from coming together as a nation and uniting in order to defeat our enemies.

The axiom remains those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. It is also axiomatic a politically correct war is unwinnable. For those of us who recall the realities of how a war is fought to win there is no forgetting the lessons of such history, and if I appear harsh in my condemnation of America’s “leadership” today my condemnation is all too well founded, and much of it has to do with my recalling the sacrifices made by the Great Generation, sacrifices now appearing to have been betrayed and of no lasting purpose or value. Of this I can be certain; either this war will be fought to win, our enemies will be named and properly demonized as they were during WWII or this time America will be lost.