A Day of Infamy
He said the day that would live in infamy. An attack the day before had decimated the Pacific fleet and temporarily paralyzed the nation’s ability to wage war and defend its interests. While fires still raged in the far off naval base, a president stood before Congress in a joint session and demanded the resources and rights to wage war.
On the day of the infamous attack, the nation awoke from a stupor and suddenly people from Savanah to Seattle recognized the significance of events happening in the world around them. The country mobilized and joined the world around it. No, that day would live forever in the minds of the generations alive to witness it. It was a moment where those alive could say: “I was doing… on December 7.” For many, their role in the world was suddenly apparent. Young men would leave the farms of the Midwest, the hills of Appalachia, the cities on the east and west coast and head to the deserts of North Africa, the hills of Sicily, and islands in the South Pacific. Over the next four years, they would cross rivers in Germany, march through the streets of Rome and wade onto Norman beaches. All of it happened because of the actions that transpired on that one infamous day.
America was slowly recovering from more than a decade of economic distress. For the previous decade since Roosevelt took office, the country had focused inward on its own problems. Roosevelt, president for more than eight years, was aware of happenings across the oceans. Two years prior, congress had begun to quietly increase the size of the American army.
In Andover, Massachusetts; about 30 miles west of Boston, John Uhler Lemmon, better known as Jack, was 16 years old and a student at the Philipps Academy of Andover, an elite boarding school where many of the scions of American government and industry sent their children to be educated. Graduates of Andover went on to the elite colleges of America such as Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. Later, these graduates would become doctors, lawyers, actors, and a president.
Along with Lemmon were two brothers from Fairmont, West Virginia: Tom and Bill. The older was Bill. He was in the class of 1942 with another classmate George H.W. Bush. The youngest, Tom, was in Lemmon’s class and graduated in 1943.
Lemmon became a celebrated actor. He starred in films such as Grumpy Old Men, The Odd Couple and worked with some of the great actors of the day including Henry Fonda and James Cagney. Bush became the 41st President of the United States and led the American effort in the first Gulf War after serving as Vice President in Ronald Reagan’s administration. Bill became a professor at Georgetown and the first chair of its Philosophy Department and later the chair of the Department of Philosophy at West Virginia University. Tom studied to be a doctor and was a well-respected physician in the state of West Virginia.
Their generation was called the greatest. They experienced more technological change than almost any previous generation. They witnessed the rise of the radio, the dropping of the atomic bomb, the onset of the television generation, the transistor, transcontinental flight, and the internet and email. In their lifetimes, the changes were revolutionary moving from analogue to digital. In science, medical technology advanced from the scalpel to the laser in their lifetimes.
Their service to the public also stood them apart. Lemmon volunteered for the Navy college training program and served on an aircraft carrier briefly during the second world war. Bush was a pilot and flew missions in the Pacific Theatre. Tom was drafted into the Army Medical Corp during the Korean conflict and served stateside. Bill was designated 4F as a result of a childhood illness.
But in the early morning of December 7, 1941, none of their futures were clear. It was a Sunday morning and life was quiet. Lemmon and the brothers would have gone to Catholic Mass that morning and returned home to study and prepare for their week ahead.
Around one o clock that afternoon, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in Hawaii and everything changed. That afternoon, Tom was at a Latin Theater practice when Lemmon burst through the doors yelling “The Japs have bombed Pearl Harbor! The Japs have bombed Pearl Harbor!” He and his fellow classmates looked around stunned and asked each other where exactly Pearl Harbor was before their Latin coach intervened “Jack, why are you interrupting our Latin Club practice with such trivial matters. Come back when something important happens!”
The next day, the world changed. While the Japanese had already savaged Nanking without as much as even a shudder, bombing the United States was a strategic error that spurred men such as Lemmon, Bush, and the brothers from Fairmont to action. Those kids and others signed up in mass to fight and serve. Now it seems a given with the present knowledge of those events that the United States would have gone to war when the Japanese attacked its naval station in the Pacific. For a Latin teacher 5000 miles away, the attack was anything but significant.
For 59 years and nine months and four days, December 7th was the most infamous day for the greatest generation. But in September of 2001, another event happened which defined another generation. It was another day of infamy. Another president stood before congress and asked again for permission to wage war. The call was issued and young people eagerly lined up to serve and fight on foreign shores. For a few months, a spirit of unity washed over the country. Flags were flown. Patriotism was at a high. But this time it was not the same world war but another kind; one fought on computers with drones and code. Yes, countries were invaded and regimes toppled. Again, American soldiers crossed deserts and climbed mountains in far off places. A new generation was suddenly aware of the vastness of the world outside its borders.