In the 1997 blockbuster “Titanic,” the elderly Rose Dawson Calvert is being shown the computer generated graphics of the sinking of the ship. She thanks the geek for the very informative presentation, but adds that to have actually experienced the sinking of that great ship was something quite different; which, of course, is why Henry Ford could rightly call so much of history “bunk.” Much of what Hollywood and the universities have portrayed of WWII following that world convulsion falls into the category of bunk for those of us like Rose of Titanic who lived the actual events. Unlike Hollywood and revisionist histories the actual experience of WWII here in America for those of us who lived that era was something quite different.

“The only good Jap is a dead Jap!” and not knowing who was a “good Jap” was the legitimate justification for Manzinar. To understand this you had to have been living at the time here in America on that “Day of Infamy” when the Japanese so totally demonized themselves by the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, you had to be listening to your radio as Roosevelt delivered that speech to Congress damning the Japanese Empire and committing America to war. You had to live the years of making sacrifices for the war effort, of Hollywood, radio, newspapers, daily announcing the atrocities of the Japanese to understand things like Manzinar. If you had gotten one of those “We regret to inform you” telegrams and hung one of those small flags with a gold star in your window you would understand Manzinar.

How easy it was for the geek to put together that computer generated graphic of the sinking of Titanic, and go on to “explain” in detail what had happened to that great ship. But as Rose pointed out, the actual experience was something quite different. Certainly I understand why a generation raised in the toxic atmosphere of political correctness would try to expiate the perception of collective American “guilt” for things like internment camps during WWII, for the dropping of those atomic bombs on Japan. But such people are guilty of the very thing of which Jesus accused the hypocrites of his time that claimed had they lived in the time of the prophets they would never have consented to torturing and killing them.

“The Battle of Monongahela” is a must in History 101. The three different accounts of the battle including that of George Washington illustrate how historical events can be skewed by the writers and their interpretation of such invents, and even the most honest attempt to be truthful and factual is often frustrated by many variables that may impact such an attempt. But the one thing more than any other that works against the facts of history is the work of revisionists, the liars that purposely change the facts to their liking, something Stalin, Hitler, and our universities together with many politically correct Hollywood and TV presentations have in common.

But the reality of the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor was my mother and so many others wearing gas masks and building bomb shelters expecting a Japanese invasion of the Hawaiian Islands, the reality was those of us here on the West Coast of America living in fear of the very same thing at the time, setting up coast watches and expecting the very worst. Immediately following that Day of Infamy there was nothing too dreadful the Japanese were not capable of doing. If you didn’t live it, you have no grounds whatsoever for criticism of how Americans reacted to the Japanese threat at that time. But it never fails there are those men that will tell women they know exactly what it feels like to be pregnant and give birth. Of such are those, both men and women that find fault with Manzinar and dropping those atomic bombs on Japan.

In writing of this over the years I realize it will only take that terrorist nuclear bomb going off at LAX to bring America into contemporary focus of what those of us still alive remember of that Day of Infamy, who recall the slogan “Remember Pearl Harbor” and all that it meant to us at the time. In an instant of time, whether it is the unexpected death of a child or other loved one, any unexpected catastrophic event changes people. That our leaders in many cases lied to us before, during, and after WWII did not change how we Americans felt about the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. It is perfectly understandable why many of us wanted revenge against the Japanese for such a thoroughly despicable act, why Doolittle’s Raid was of such vital importance and why there was a need to continue demonizing our enemies in order to galvanize an entire nation into a sole commitment to prosecute and win WWII.

The “Greatest Generation” could never and would never have fought a “politically correct war” to save the world from the Axis Powers. To think such a thing is possible now is to fly in the face of facts to the contrary. For those in the comfort of their “hindsight” to criticize those of my generation for things like Manzinar and dropping those atomic bombs on Japan it will only take a catastrophic event such as Pearl Harbor to remove them from their “comfort zone” into reality.

Certainly I damn Bush and his enablers for what I consider to be an absolute betrayal of We the People, I damn those like the Clintons and others that are patently no more than “politicians” in the very worst interpretation of the word for offering us nothing better as a choice of leadership. But I also damn an electorate that has allowed such a betraying leadership to rule America. And should this generation find itself the victim of another Pearl Harbor it will be because the lessons of that Day of Infamy have been forgotten. Tragically for America, it is easier to criticize those like me still alive to tell the story of that time than to offer any substantive hope of this generation doing better. When the same sacrifices are being demanded and made of this generation that were of mine during WWII, the “experts” that were never there, then and only then will critics of my generation and what it took to win WWII have anything of value to say.