From MSNBC.com: Women firefighters direct a hose on Pearl Harbor after the attacks. What I love most about this photo? The diversity of women fighting back. Amazing. Proud.
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After 70 years in our hearts, minds and textbooks, we celebrate another anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attacks on our country. Dec. 7, 1941 was a day that would live in “infamy,” Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt said. And it was true.
I remember as a young girl – about 3rd grade – our teacher asked us to talk to our grandparents about World War II and where they were when Pearl Harbor happened. I asked my grandma.
My grandparents were never “hip.” No Nintendo games for me on Christmas morning — usually just Mickey Mouse pajamas. But my God, they have an impressive history and my grandmother is one amazing lady.
My grandfather, Kenneth, was a pilot – a mailman, actually. My grandmother heard the news on the radio, was scared to death for the men who were on base, and wondered if her husband was OK. He was – he wrote her after he touched down in Japan by plane. He later sent gifts to her – Japanese money, a Japanese kimono, and other Japanese trinkets. I remember she showed me these things when she told me this story.
She remembers Franklin’s voice – she remembers the way it sounded. She remembered feeling strong and confident in how the U.S. was going to handle it – but she still wondered if her husband would make it back OK.
When she tells me stories about other war wives, she usually pauses.”I never knew what happened with her. I liked her a lot. She had a good laugh,” she’ll say. Or, “Her husband died not long after that – I think she got a job at a department store and remarried.”
Despite how different their lives were after the war was over, the war wives my grandmother met were her friends and they had that big, international event that tied them together.
I wrote my paper for class and turned it in. At 10 years old, I didn’t think much about it, but now I’m so glad our teacher asked us to talk to our grandparents. I’m sure our own children and grandchildren will ask us one day where we were when 9/11 happened. Hopefully that’s the only tragedy we encounter from here on out.
The picture above reminds me of my grandma. Even though she wasn’t there and didn’t direct a hose, in the years that followed, she played housekeeper and worked in an artillery factory while grandpa was away at the war. My own Rosie the Riveter in my bloodline — and whose blood I share. After the flood of 1965 in Clinton, she scrubbed out my mother’s childhood home so they could move back in. She worked 2 jobs to support the family. She’s 86 now and she’s still a kick-ass broad. When she fell last summer and broke her leg, she managed to use her good leg to hook the phone cord to call 911. Even in pain, she’s still tough.
For more information about the 70th anniversary of Pearl Harbor and to see photos from that day, visit the MSNBC article.
