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AP





PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii -- With smoke still billowing from the torpedoed ruins of the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor, Thomas Griffin's B-25 group took off from its Oregon base to search for Japanese ships or submarines along the West Coast.

They didn't find any, but four months later the group flew from the aircraft carrier USS Hornet and attacked Tokyo. The raid inflicted little damage but boosted U.S. morale and embarrassed the Japanese, who launched the ill-fated attack on Midway Island six weeks later, Griffin recalled.

"We took them by surprise," said Griffin, a keynote speaker at a ceremony Sunday commemorating the 67th anniversary of the Japanese raid that marked America's entry into World War II. He was joined by more than 2,000 World War II veterans and other observers.

Usually, the commemoration focuses on the attack on the USS Arizona, Pearl Harbor and several other installations on Oahu. But Sunday's remembrance centered more on the months following the raid and on an American response that helped defeat the Japanese and render the U.S. a military superpower...

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xtnyoda thought it would be good to remember this Pearl Harbor day. It is a good reminder that in all of human history the only way to address madness is with force...determined, unalterable, deliberate, force.

We can go one of three ways.

1. Be militarily prepared before attacked.
2. Attempt to get prepared after attacked.
3. Hope that those determined to facilitate our destruction will somehow change their minds and decide to become civil citizens of a world community.

Only option number one has worked well in human history. There are dreamers however. I don't mind dreamers as long as they leave those preparing to deter or defeat extremists alone...so the dreamers can continue to dream in peace.

xtnyoda, shalomed