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Terrible Tuesday

September 11, 2001 will be a date and image seared in our generation’s memory for the next fifty years. We will honor our dead, remember the brutal attack and vow to never let our guard falter again. I suspect we made the same vows sixty years ago when the Japanese Imperial Navy launched our nation into World War II and an unwanted war in the Pacific.

Like then, a great and mighty people were stirred from across the ocean to an ominous and terrible rage. History teaches that Imperial Japan’s aim was to cripple the American Fleet so completely that we would never consider a war over such a vast distance as the entire Pacific Ocean.

They were wrong.

Indeed, it was an ambitious statement for FDR to declare on December 8, 1941, “No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.”

FDR believed in nothing less than absolute victory—he never lived to see Japan’s ultimate defeat. Certainly it must have appeared to be a daunting task to imagine taking the war to the Japanese Home Islands, recognizing that the Pacific Fleet had been shattered and a handful of aircraft carriers stood the watch between IJN and the west coast.

At the conclusion of his speech, FDR stated, “With confidence in our armed forces-with the unbounding determination of our people-we will gain the inevitable triumph-so help us God.”

Almost sixty years later, a new president watched a sunny September morn break the peace and bring war once again to our shores. We suffered almost 7000 dead and 6500 wounded. Two great towers lay ruined in the heart of one of greatest cities, the Pentagon has a bloody and burning wound, and the Pennsylvania countryside marks the last stand of several American Patriots.

We know who our enemies are, and we will find the dark holes where they hide. Unlike the IJN, who attacked a military target and who believed a declaration of war had already been issued, these cowards killed men, women, and children. They cut the throats of airline passengers and stewardesses. They turned civilian aircraft into flying bombs.

This slaughter held no honor and brought no glory to God. It was a perverse and ultimately flawed attempt to cripple America. They sought to frighten us from commitments to Israel and our position in the world. The believed us to be soft and unsuited for battle.

They too are wrong.

They have forgotten the terrible American rage that brought total and absolute war to Japan. Perhaps, they never heard of Jimmy Doolittle and his raid over Tokyo four months later in April 1942. Maybe they forgot read the history of the United States Marine Corps as they crossed the Pacific from bloody beach to bloody beach. Or could it be they considered the battle of Midway a historical fluke when the battered American fleet tore the pride of IJN apart.

George W. Bush came before a shaken nation (himself a target on that terrible Tuesday). He told the world, “My fellow citizens, for the last nine days, the entire world has seen for itself the state of our Union – and it is strong.” Like FDR, he discovered the American spirit to be bloodied, but undaunted.

Unlike his predecessor who was in search of a legacy, George W. Bush is a president pursued by a legacy. He has asked for nothing less that total victory over these cowards, and his words have the steel resolution that FDR displayed on the day after that bloody Sunday in 1941.

George W. Bush issued America’s demand, “Tonight we are a country awakened to danger and called to defend freedom. Our grief has turned to anger, and anger to resolution. Whether we bring our enemies to justice, or bring justice to our enemies, justice will be done.”

A great and mighty people have been stirred to anger once again. We face an enemy that has believed its propaganda and has neglected to learn from history and are therefore destined to share the same fate of all who attack the United States. Where is Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy? What horror befell Imperial Japan? Will anyone remember Soviet Russia? All were enemies, and all have been discarded to history’s ash heap.

There are those who are fearful and have forgotten that America is the home of the brave and land of the free. It is not we who should fear the future; rather, it is those who have chosen to bring war to our land. For the American warrior spirit has been roused from its slumber, and a distracted nation has focused on a nest of vipers. It is these cowards who should tremble, for we are coming and the day of our wrath will be terrible.

Douglas De Bono / DouglasDeBono.Com Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota E-Mail readermail@DouglasDeBono.Com