When bombs fell over Pearl Harbor on this date in 1941, news didn’t spread through tweets or text messages or online news sites. Most people heard about the attack from others. Many people listened to the news on their floor unit Philco radio.
The news was devastating and as routine halting as any news could ever be.
“The Japanese have bombed Pearl Harbor!” It’s difficult to wrap my head around the loss of life on that day. Two thousand four hundred people were killed in the attack. Franklin Delano Roosevelt said, “This is a date that will live in infamy.” And the date lives on.
But sadly, more dates are being added to the infamy list. More routines have been forever altered.
The terror of 9/11 will be remembered for generations. We watched the saga unfold on the Today Show in 2001. The iPhone wasn’t with us yet and we couldn’t stream live video on our iPads. We watched the terrible news on live television. Most of us will remember where we were and what we were doing when we heard or saw the news.
Then there’s Sandyhook (Newtown, Conn.) and Umpqua Community College in Oregon and Charleston, S.C, and Century 16 Movie Theater in Aurora, CO. and Ft. Hood and Virginia Tech and Columbine and now San Bernardino. And I’ve left so many deadly events off this list.
And there’s Paris and the primary school in Dunblane, Scotland and subway, train and plane bombings.
We need a special calendar to remember the lives lost in attacks on human life. The days of infamy are almost becoming countless. We aren’t even surprised anymore. Saddened. Outraged. But not surprised.
Let us all continue to pray that one day, it will end so that our digital media can announce only news of peace on earth, good will to men.
Can we have no more days of infamy?
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