Epilogue and Some Final Thoughts
Now that I had returned to civilian life and had time to reflect on my experiences in World War II, my thoughts inevitably turned to attempting to understand more clearly why we, as ordinary citizens of a nation committed to democratic institutions, found ourselves risking life and limb in a terrible war unparalleled in human history. Was ours really the greatest generation as some have described?
Many Americans felt that it would not be in the best interest of the country to become militarily involved in disputes which were going on many thousands of miles from our shores. After all, we were fortunate to have large buffer zones, the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, which would serve as a deterrent to future enemy attacks. But the isolation period came to a violent end on December 7, 1941, with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. This unprovoked attack (or so interpreted by most Americans) galvanized the nation almost overnight and from that point on, our participation in World War II, aside from some pragmatic concerns, became a moral issue. A world where human freedoms were being threatened on a massive scale and the darkness that would engulf most of the civilized world if the Axis Powers were to dominate the globe, seemed to unite the American people in an unprecedented common effort that would not accept any other alternative except final victory. It was, in short, the right thing to do at the right time in our nation's history. I have no doubt that succeeding generations of Americans will react as strongly as we did if it is the right thing to do and can be justified by the same level of moral rightness that confronted us in World War II.
Therein lies the challenge.
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