America’s enduring tragedy

Louise McRoberts of Windham is a World War II veteran. Life changed for McRoberts and the nation after the events of Dec. 7, 1941. Japan’s sneak attack on the naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, resulted in the deaths of 2,403 Americans, 68 of whom were civilians. The surprise strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service was the catalyst for the United States’ entry into World War II.

Tom Bristol is also from Windham and another World War II veteran. Bristol was working for his father as an electrician as the family business dried up due to the war. Bristol recalled being at work with his father when he heard the news of the Pearl Harbor attack on the radio. They stopped working immediately. So great was the shock that father and son did not return to work for a few days.

Louis Brenner of Hudson enlisted when he was 17 years old. Brenner said he remembered learning of the Pearl Harbor attack outside of a motel. Before that moment, he didn’t know where Pearl Harbor was.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt would characterize Dec. 7, 1941 — 78 years ago today — as “a date which will live in infamy.” The carnage was vast and horrifying.

Columbia County Director of Veterans Services Gary Flaherty has fond memories of former Canaan Town Supervisor Len Dooran, a veteran of Pearl Harbor who died at 97.

“He was having breakfast and a Japanese plane flew by the window,” Flaherty said in 2018.

Dooran was a warrant officer in the U.S. Navy, stationed at Pearl Harbor with his wife and first child. Flaherty served on the Canaan Town Board with Dooran in the mid-1990s.

“None of our warriors should ever be forgotten,” Flaherty said. “We don’t have many World War II veterans left.”

Indeed, this could mark the last Pearl Harbor anniversary that American warriors will see. Sixteen million Americans served in World War II and as of the end of 2018, only 496,777 of those men and women are still alive, according to statistics from the National World War II Museum in New Orleans.

We’re losing our World War II veterans at an alarming rate of about 350 per day, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs, in a report by The Washington Post News Service. At this rate, all American World War II veterans will be dead in less than four years. In New York, a state with a population of nearly 20 million, fewer than 27,000 World War II veterans survive.

Veterans advocate Vince Grimaldi of Taghkanic finds meaning in the words President Ronald Reagan spoke about veterans and their sacrifices, words that should resonate as we remember Pearl Harbor: “They gave up two lives — their youth and their future.”