am probably one of the few who remember this date. I was not quite 6 and my dad and I were walking down Broadway when he looked up at the NY Times building and read the zipper (electronic headlines which changed every minute or two) which announced the attack on Pearl Harbor. December 7th, 1941 and of course I didn’t realize at the time what it was but through the next four years learned  to be a proud American. From the singing  of “God Bless America” in our grade school classrooms in early 1942 to the flag waving days of August 1945 when my brother came home from the war. He joined on the 8th of December and within a week was shipped off to camp. Maybe I didn’t realize the earnest effort of those brave young men then. Maybe I didn’t realize their instant desire to fight for their country and our freedom at that moment but I did almost 60 years later when I walked through the landscaped gardens of the cemetery at Normandy, France where thousands who wanted to preserve our country, found instead their final resting place 6,000 miles from home. The rows upon rows of simple white crosses bore witness to their bravery. My brother was fortunate enough to get back alive. Thousands did not.  They are all still there. Beneath the quiet waters of Pearl Harbor bay to the barren reaches deep within the soil at Iwo Jima, they lie, seventy years later in silent testimony to a nation of young men who thought that much of their country. Sleep well, you hero’s of the past. A few of us still remember and shed a tear or today as we salute your gallantry.