The Attack on Pearl Harbor I was five years old old. The Depression was behind us but it and WWII shaped my life. I have vivid memories from the newsreels. My mom took me to the movies often. I especially remember the reels of the liberation of the death camps in Europe, but my memories of the war in the Pacific have two components. I was too young to really appreciate Pearl harbor and its meaning but later my life's course brought me to grips with it again and again. Let me tell you how I came to understand this day in in 1941 as I grew older and what it means to me now beneath the break. If this seems boring to you then you have a lot to learn!
First of all I went to college via the Regular NROTC Program. Every semester of college we had a manditory "millitary science" course (the quotes denote an obvious oxymoron).So we did military history. We studied the war in the pacific in great detail. I only want to comment here that we went through the "math" of taking island by island as we gained our foothold on the Pacific. Here I was in a college course "calculating" the cost in American lives of taking each island. I never really got over that!
Oh then there was that magnificent musical historyVictory at Sea by Rogers and Hammerstein. I loved that music and somehow allowed myself to be mesmerized by it. It even played a role in my early romances.
The bomb is a very core thing in my experiences. I remember the "duck and cover" drills in school later on.
We paid them back and we ended the war but we paid a price we will never be able to assess by developing the bomb.
I can save a lot of space here by telling you that I now think I know what made that happen. I, as a scientist, have always been fascinated by the many faceted roles science and technology play in our world.
My friend, Jim Coffman, and I just published a book that tells the story of why we have to do what technology and science make us able to do. It tells the story of how science itself, as a product of our brains, fits into the economic system we call "capitalism", for lack of a more modern and accurate concept, and it puts all this together.
I want to go back to one of the things that broke me free. During graduate school in the 1960s I played the guitar and sang to make my life better. Here is a song from Dylan that really means a lot to me.
Oh my name it is nothin'
My age it means less
The country I come from
Is called the Midwest
I's taught and brought up there
The laws to abide
And the land that I live in
Has God on it's side.
Oh the history books tell it
They tell it so well
The cavalries charged
The Indians fell
The cavalries charged
The Indians died
Oh the country was young
With God on it's side.
The Spanish-American
War had it's day
And the Civil War too
Was soon laid away
And the names of the heroes
I's made to memorize
With guns on their hands
And God on their side.
The First World War, boys
It came and it went
The reason for fighting
I never did get
But I learned to accept it
Accept it with pride
For you don't count the dead
When God's on your side.
When the Second World War
Came to an end
We forgave the Germans
And then we were friends
Though they murdered six million
In the ovens they fried
The Germans now too
Have God on their side.
I've learned to hate Russians
All through my whole life
If another war comes
It's them we must fight
To hate them and fear them
To run and to hide
And accept it all bravely
With God on my side.
But now we got weapons
Of the chemical dust
If fire them we're forced to
Then fire them we must
One push of the button
And a shot the world wide
And you never ask questions
When God's on your side.
In a many dark hour
I've been thinkin' about this
That Jesus Christ
Was betrayed by a kiss
But I can't think for you
You'll have to decide
Whether Judas Iscariot
Had God on his side.
So now as I'm leavin'
I'm weary as Hell
The confusion I'm feelin'
Ain't no tongue can tell
The words fill my head
And fall to the floor
If God's on our side
He'll stop the next war.
Clearly Dylan, and I, were too optimistic. Either there is no god or he, she or it is far more evil than we ever anticipated. Remember Peal Harbor!