With heavy heart, sailor recalls Pearl Harbor attack

After the terrible events of December 7, 1941, we believed we would never again see an attack of this type on our shores, but we were wrong.

Those who wish to engage our nation on the 21st Century battlefield will devise ever more nefarious ways to kill Americans in order to disrupt and harm our way of life.

We must remain vigilant, we must always be prepared, and we must ensure we have the resources to appropriately and adequately respond to those who seek to extinguish our beacon of freedom in the world.

We owe a debt to those who perished at Pearl Harbor, we owe a debt to those who fought on and to those who continue to fight courageously for our country today.

- Allen West

"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."

Pearl Harbor's greatest lesson

By Walter R. Borneman
Published December 07, 2012
FoxNews.com

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  7th December 1941: The results of the Pearl Harbour (Pearl Harbor) attack by the Japanese at Wheeler Field Barracks with artillery being pulled from the water. (Photo by Three Lions/Getty Images)
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  The USS Arizona burns during the bombing of Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941 in Hawaii. (Photo courtesy of U.S. Navy/Newsmakers)
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  The American destroyer USS Shaw explodes during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (Pearl Harbor), home of the American Pacific Fleet during World War II. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)
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  10th December 1941: The USS California on fire in Pearl Harbor (Pearl Harbor) after the Japanese attack. (Photo by Fox Photos/Getty Images)

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Seventy-one years ago today the Imperial Japanese Navy launched a devastating, surprise attack against American naval forces at Pearl Harbor. That moment became the defining memory marker of a generation-much as the Kenney assassination and 9/11 would become for later generations. Everyone of age to understand that Sunday morning would always remember where he or she was when the news crackled out of a radio or sprawled across the front page of a newspaper.
On that day, December 7, 1941, Europe was fighting Nazi Germany and President Franklin D. Roosevelt was slowly preparing the United States for an inevitable entry into the conflict. But America was still divided; many held strong isolationist views. Roosevelt had been slowly chipping away at American isolationism for years, but in two hours on a quiet Sunday morning, Japan finished his task.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/12/07/pearl-harbor-greatest-lesson/#ixzz2EOYi6rsY

Pearl Harbor survivor helps identify unknown dead

Published December 07, 2012
Associated Press

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  Nov. 21, 2012: Ray Emory discusses his work pushing to change grave markers for unknown Pearl Harbor dead and identifying the remains of unknowns at his home in Honolulu. (AP)

HONOLULU - Ray Emory could not accept that more than one quarter of the 2,400 Americans who died at Pearl Harbor were buried, unidentified, in a volcanic crater.
And so he set out to restore names to the dead.
Emory, a survivor of the attack, doggedly scoured decades-old documents to piece together who was who. He pushed, and sometimes badgered, the government into relabeling more than 300 gravestones with the ship names of the deceased. And he lobbied for forensic scientists to exhume the skeletons of those who might be identified.
On Friday, the 71-year anniversary of the Japanese attack, the Navy and National Park Service will honor the 91-year-old former sailor for his determination to have Pearl Harbor remembered, and remembered accurately.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/12/07/pearl-harbor-survivor-helps-identify-unknown-dead/?test=latestnews#ixzz2EOZCzHX9