Croaky Remembers: Lessons from Pearl Harbor for Today’s Conservatism
The Day of Infamy Through Croaky’s Eyes
As the first light of dawn gently brushes over Pearl Harbor, the tranquility is palpable, soothing your weary bones from yesterday's drills. You're nestled in your bunk aboard the USS Pennsylvania, the faint whispers of the Pacific lulling you in the comfort of routine, far from the Nebraska farm that shaped your youth. It's a serene Sunday morning; the calm before a storm of which you are blissfully unaware. The USS Pennsylvania lay vulnerable, ensconced in the presumed sanctuary of Dry Dock No. 1. Her screws, those propellers that might have propelled her to safety, unceremoniously removed for refitting, rendering her as immobile as a your dad back in Nebraska after a large thanksgiving dinner, in this case tethered by circumstance and steel rather than Turkey and starch.
The clock near your bunk reads 0755, a routine time that is about to be etched into history with fiery strokes. The initial hint of danger is subtle—a distant, unusual drone creeping into your half-dreams. It grows rapidly, a sinister crescendo that shatters the morning calm. As the first bomb detonates, the shock wave jolts through the ship's steel frame, catapulting you from the edge of sleep into stark, adrenalized awareness.
Alarms blare, slicing through the confusion. Commands ricochet down the metal corridors, a stark contrast to the usual Sunday lull. "General quarters! Man your stations!" The urgency in the shouted orders is unmistakable, propelling you into motion with a jolt of adrenaline. You think: “Is this a drill?” for only a moment before reality sets in. You throw yourself out of your bunk, the familiar yet now alien sound of explosions thundering through the thick air.
It’s December 7, 1941 here you are, a young gunner, spirited away from the bucolic fields of home, now grappling with the machinery of war on the deck of this stationary behemoth. “We can’t run away or a move, we’re just sitting ducks!!” You hear as your first thought is to man your position. The morning's tranquility was just a prelude this chaos you were until minutes ago blissfully unaware of, shattered by the drone of Japanese Zeroes, their engines a discordant symphony heralding a ballet of destruction. The first alarms are not auditory but visceral—a clenching of fear, a tightening of resolve—as the call to battle stations reverberates, it’s also call that turns men from dreamers into warriors.
At precisely 08:05, as if by some hellish appointment, the first enemy aircraft made their deadly intentions known. Your ship the Pennsylvania, trapped in her concrete cradle, becomes an unwilling protagonist in this up until recently foreign theater of war. You run to your station as the anti-aircraft gun becomes your pulpit and your power, from which you dispense fiery sermons of defiance.
This enemy, cunning and relentless, attempts a sly gambit—torpedo the dry dock, transform sanctuary into watery grave. Yet fate, capricious in her mercies, denies them this victory. Instead, the bombers resort to strafing, a craven tactic that sends shivers down the spine as bullets dance menacingly close.
By 08:30, the assault intensifies as high-altitude bombers join this macabre waltz. You, armed with determination and a gun whose shells burst prematurely in the sky—a maddening display of futile fireworks—wage a relentless battle against this aerial onslaught. Amidst this chaos, your gun crew claims a minor triumph, downing a low-flying adversary, a small yet symbolic victory against a backdrop of unyielding adversity.
As the clock strikes 09:20, tragedy compounds; the destroyers Cassin and Downes, your unwilling companions in dry dock, are ablaze, their agony shared by fiery contagion with the Pennsylvania. The decision is made, desperate yet necessary, to flood the dock, a bid to quench the flames licking at your vessel’s bow.
The day unfolds with frenetic energy—battles fought not just against external foes but against the internal inferno threatening to consume your maritime bastion and you along with it. Amidst explosions and the roar of fire you begin ferrying ammunition across water tinged with oil and blood, an endeavor as crucial as any volley fired in anger.
As the sun sets on this day of infamy, the Pennsylvania, scarred yet dignified, prepares for the journey to recovery and retaliation, symbolizing not merely a ship, but the indomitable spirit of a nation roused to righteous indignation. The toll is etched not just in metal but in flesh and spirit—15 valiant souls, many of them your friends, lost, others including yourself marked by wounds visible and unseen. In those chaotic moments, amidst fire and fury, a profound lesson was seared into the hearts of all present—a lesson that echoes across the decades.
What Pearl Harbor Teaches Us About Vigilance Today
Today it’s December 7th 2024 and we stand today, gazing back across the decades to the same morning in 1941—a date which, as Franklin Delano Roosevelt so aptly pronounced, has lived in infamy—it is incumbent upon us to reflect not merely with the somber reverence that the horrific attack on Pearl Harbor duly warrants, but with the keen, piercing eyes of vigilance that history’s hard lessons necessitate.
On that fateful morning, as the sun rose quietly over the Pacific, the unsuspecting soldiers stationed at Pearl Harbor were met not with the light of dawn, but with the dark shadows of warplanes descending swiftly upon them. The attack, swift and brutal, not only crippled the American naval fleet but also awakened a sleeping giant, stirring within the national consciousness a resolute spirit of unity and determination.
To the conservative mind, Pearl Harbor isn’t merely a lesson in the failures of reconnaissance, nor is it just a tale of valor born from tragedy. It is, fundamentally, a stark reminder of the eternal price of liberty: vigilance. We now know that the signs of impending strife were there, writ across the diplomatic dispatches and intelligence reports—clouds of warning that went, regrettably, insufficiently heeded. In the lexicon of conservative thought, this represents a failure not only of defense but of imagination; a perilous acquiescence to the assumption that tomorrow must unfailingly mirror today.
But we can’t dwell on the missteps. The true measure of our nation’s character is found not in its avoidance of failure, but in its response to it. The unity and resolve forged in the crucible of Pearl Harbor exemplify the highest ideals of American resilience, we saw it again when a similar sneak attack was carried out against the United States on 9/11. Sixty years earlier in 1941 across factories and farms, from the small towns to the sprawling cities, Americans came together, motivated not by the promise of swift victory but by the pursuit of a righteous cause. Here, community wasn’t a mere bystander to history but a vital actor on the stage of war.