Skies of Death One Sunday Morn....

It was a lazy afternoon, 64 years ago today. My dad, 18 and home from his freshman year of college for Chistmas break, was laying on the living room couch, listening to the radio after coming home from church and having the traditional big Southern suppper. It was cold out there in the small town of McMinneville, Tennessee. The snow was on the ground and thinking of places like Hawaii was the furthest thing from his mind.

Across the country, in another small town in Washington (Walla Walla) my mother, then only 12, went to a movie with friends. The lights had just gone down when suddenly they came back up. The manager climbed up on the stage and looked out at the startled audience. "Ladies and gentleman.." he managed to choke out. "You probably want to return to your homes. The Japanese have just attacked Pearl Harbor. We are told that all of you in uniform should return to your base immdiately..." Amid the sounds of gasps and crying, he stepped down and walked down the aisle, obviously shaken.

At the same moment, my Dad jumped off the couch as he and his family stared at each other in disbelief. As the radio announcer repeated the same news, the tears came. While they sat there by the Christmas tree, digesting Sunday dinner, young Americans his age were being slaughtered in a sneak attack....in Paradise.

The next day, he and many millions of other young men his age, stood in line to enlist. The biggest war in history had begun for America, and would define that generation and those after.

Today, now known as Pearl Harbor day, many young men and women are in the middle east after a similar sneak attack, forever known as 9/11. Let us pray for them and bring them back home soon, after victory. And let us always remember that life can change in the blink of an eye... and none of us knows when that defining moment will be.