I'm thinking of my Mom and Dad today,both gone now.I can remember a pin Mom would always wear on December 7th,"Remember (a real pearl affixed here) Harbor." My Dad was one of the guys who went to the enlistment office on December 8th to join the Marines.He was rejected because of a genetic shoulder problem.Lucky him.Most of his friends who made the cut were killed on Tarawa,Guadalcanal,and other islands in the distant Pacific.He instead joined the Army,and went to England landing on D-Day plus 2,part of a Railroad Repair Batallion that followed front line troops,repairing the tracks that the Germans had destroyed on their retreat.He contracted pneumonia sleeping in the snow during the Battle of the Bulge,and it caused long-term lung problems that affected him the rest of his life.He stood on a hill near St Lo France,and watched a regiment of US Rangers enter the town on reconnaissance,then watched as an American bomber group mistakenly levelled the town before they could be called off.He lost his best friend as they walked along a French road next to moving trucks,when his friends rifle sling snagged a hook on a truck-bed,sweeping him under the wheels.

Ancient history.