Seventy-three years ago, on the predawn hours of Sunday, December 7, 1941, Japanese Imperial forces launched a surprising and devastating aerial attack against the United States’ naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, home of the Pacific Fleet. When the attack was over, the U. S. casualties were 2,403 killed and 1,178 wounded in action, besides a long list of lost and damaged air and naval crafts.
Although not an attack on North America, since Hawaii was a United States territory and not a state of the Union at that time, it prompted the United States to declare war on Japan, after a passionate speech by President Franklin D. Roosevelt before the Senate.
On September 11, 2001, another date which will live in infamy, this time the United States continental soil was attacked in a series of coordinated suicide attacks upon the Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington by members of al-Qaeda with a result of the loss of close to 3,000 civilians. The United States responded with an all-out war against terrorism.
Closer to home, in Boston, on April 15, 2013 during the celebration of the Boston Marathon two explosions occurred, stopping the race while everyone rushed to help more than 200 people injured resulting in three spectators were killed.
The difference between these attacks is that the first one came from an easy to identify and destroy country, but at a high cost. Terrorists are everywhere, and they come from everywhere. The attacks carried out in New York were perpetrated by 19 foreigners from Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Lebanon leaving from Boston in separate airplanes and the Boston Marathon by two students from Chechnya, a region of Russia living in the area.
This Christmas, when families tend to congregate and enjoy peace, let us raise a prayer for those who seventy-three years ago gave everything to defend our principles and ideology and also for those who entered the burning towers, when everyone was trying to get out, as well as our local heroes who went to the aid of victims of the Boston Marathon’s bombs. Let’s not forget their sacrifice and what they have done for humanity!
