By Paul Greenberg
Saturday, December 07, 2013
Some memories never fade, and shouldn't.
The news, like the attack, came out of the blue. So did
an email I got relaying an old-timer's memories of that day, a day that would
live in infamy. His daughter up in Connecticut was kind enough to relay them to
me down here in Arkansas.
Why me? Because, she explained, "I recently came
across your 2011 article about remembering Pearl Harbor. The article prompted a
discussion with my father, who related his memory of December 7th. Thanks to
your article, our family has the following first-hand account of the day."
And thanks to her and her father, Robert Cunningham, I can share his memories
with you, Gentle Reader, on the 72nd anniversary of that fateful day:
"I was a newspaper delivery boy for the Hartford
Courant during the fall of 1941. During that time, the Courant was holding a
subscription drive. Each paperboy who signed up a new subscriber was invited to
a banquet dinner at the Bond Hotel in Hartford. The award dinner for hundreds
of delivery boys was held late in the afternoon of December 7, 1941. In
addition to the dinner, the Courant arranged entertainment for us. There were
clowns, juggling and local sports heroes.
"In the midst of the festivities there was a lot of
commotion on the stage. Eventually someone came on stage and announced that the
Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor. Many of us had no idea where Pearl Harbor
was located. The speaker explained the importance of the naval base at Pearl
Harbor. Being paperboys, we were also informed that the Hartford Courant would
be publishing an evening Extra edition that would be published as additional
information was received. We were asked to report to our normal newspaper
delivery location to wait for the special edition.
"I took the bus back to my usual delivery location
in West Hartford and waited and waited. When the Extra edition did not arrive,
I joined other young paperboys and took the bus back to the Hartford Courant at
State Street in Hartford to wait for the edition to come off the press. When we
arrived at the Courant building, there were stacks and stacks of papers waiting
to be delivered. At that point we took the papers and ran into the streets of
Hartford delivering papers to a city eager for news of Pearl Harbor.
"The demand for news was so intense that we stayed
out in the streets until late into the night selling papers. As the demand for
papers in the city of Hartford subsided, we went back to our local
neighborhoods and our established routes to deliver the news to our neighbors.
These are just the memories of a 13-year-old paperboy who barely understood the
significance of a Day That Will Live in Infamy."
To those who lived through that time, and still remember
the Americans who didn't, that day and that war still lives. Seared into
memory. Not enough of us today will think of those Americans who gave their
lives in the jungles of the Pacific or in the skies above Europe, who fought in
North Africa or on the beaches of Sicily and Normandy or wherever they were
sent to defend not only their country but the cause of freedom around the
world. Cut down before their time, they never grew old. Still young in their
fresh soldier boy's uniforms or coats of Navy blue, their pictures still stand
somewhere almost lost among all the others atop crowded mantles and chifferobes
across the country, their gazes fixed on us from the past. If we would only
look. And learn.
The now aged veterans who survived that terrible conflict
might have been with Jimmy Doolittle for 30 minutes over Tokyo, a daring raid
that revived American spirits in the midst of initial defeat after defeat and
retreat after retreat. Or they might have made it to the victorious end aboard
the battleship Missouri, where the unconditional surrender was signed after
those blinding flashes that destroyed the populations of whole cities. Wherever
they are, they will remember this day -- as we should remember them.
The country would experience another Day That Will Live
in Infamy on September 11, 2001, and once again resolve to see the struggle
through to the inevitable victory, so help us God. Yet the memory of that day,
too, like the country's resolve, already fades. Appeasement comes back into
fashion if by more polite names. Once again Western statesmen draft diplomatic
deals and issue press releases proclaiming peace in our time. Once again,
defense budgets are cut as America withdraws from the world stage. With the
usual results: Aggression goes unchecked, a bloody civil war rages in Syria as
it once did in Spain, fanaticism prospers, and the next Day of Infamy is
invited while America sleeps.
Today the memories indelibly etched in a young paperboy's
mind on December 7th, 1941, and now part of his family's heritage, come back
strong, if only for a passing day. Those memories need to be kept alive,
powerful and vivid, from generation to generation, and their lesson remembered.
There are many other Robert Cunninghams in this still
great country, this sleeping giant more than one vainglorious aggressor has
made the mistake of awakening, and their stories need to be told and preserved,
too. Which is another reason why the veterans of that terrible war, the
diminishing number of them we still have with us, should record their memories
for posterity. Because they're all part of your heritage, America.
Pass it on.
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