The importance of keeping track of emotional touchstones during war
I'm working today, and am keeping boredom at bay by having a CD of WWII songs in the background. I'm not really listening, it just keeps me on track. However, one song, which I've known for years, caught my ear: Remember Pearl Harbor (c. 1941, Lyrics: Don Reid, Sammy Kaye, Music: Don Reid). Here are the lyrics:
History in ev'ry century Records an act that lives forevermore. We'll recall, as into line we fall The thing that happened on Hawaii's shore Let's remember Pearl Harbor As we go to meet the foe Let's remember Pearl Harbor As we did the Alamo. We will always remember how they died for Liberty Let's remember Pearl Harbor And go on to victory.The song is kind of a cute march, but not much more, with simplistic lyrics and a pedestrian melody. Nevertheless, it struck me as being an important song, because it was put out there to help people remember why men were fighting. They were fighting because the Japanese had, out of the clear blue sky, attacked and killed their own. I scarcely need to say that modern popular culture hasn't produced anything even remotely like this. Instead, we have the abortive attempt to place an anti-American museum at the site of the WTC, and the abortive design for an Islamic crescent in the field where Flight 93 crashed. Each of these horrible ideas was beaten back, but it took an inordinate amount of vigilance and energy to do so. You know, despite Bush's resolve, I wonder if we're going to win this war. If you don't have your culture behind you, you don't have the strength to fight, no matter how hi-tech your weaponry, and how strong and brave your fighting force. Likewise, the fact that ordinary people remember 9/11 may not be enough in the face of the MSM's, Hollywood's, and the liberal establishment's enormous efforts to wipe out our memories and replace them with multiculturalist garbage.