ONLINE EDITION FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 21, 2001

Opinion

Recently I wrote about the attack on Pearl Harbor 60 years ago for a veterans publication and wanted to include some personal accounts. I never intended to speak with actual survivors who were there that day, but to ordinary citizens who were old enough at the time to remember.

I did find a number of people who fit the requirement, but decided not to use their recollections. Instead, I used a memoir by someone caught in the middle of the attack who had told her story countless times. Still, she managed to convey some of the terror she must have been feeling as a child as bullets whirled about her.

My home front survivors, on the other hand, with no memory of personal danger, and after a lapse of six decades, had rather bland recall of where they were on December 7, 1941, what they were doing, and most importantly, how they felt. Time had apparently erased much of the emotions that must have surged upon hearing the news.

Today I found myself in the midst of another attack on Americans. Although I am often in the World Trade Center area, I was not there this day. That presence was not a requirement to feel affected. I may have lost friends or former colleagues in those buildings and will not know it for some time.

The Second World War, which began for the United States with the Japanese attack, was a conflict that we had to enter. It is unimaginable what would have happened had we not. And now we are involved in another war, but today's enemy is not so easy to distinguish as he was then.

There were those who looked the other way for far too long before they decided to rally behind the Allies against the Axis powers. And once the danger that Hitler and his kind posed was fully appreciated, there were still countries that decided to remain neutral, some growing rich on war profiteering, even as their neighbors performed with extraordinary valor.

Reasonable and moral people everywhere can agree that what happened in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001 was wrong. There may even be collective outrage that will remain for several days. There might even be an overwhelming, universal call for a rapid and strong response.

Are we at war? I think so, although it has yet to be declared and may never be. We think we know who the enemy is, but unlike our former enemies these villains refuse to wear such a brand. Somehow, they have managed to convince the always present fence sitters that America is the real culprit for its predisposition to stand up for those who cannot fully protect themselves.

Where I come from, they call that standing up to bullies. But in the more complicated post cold-war environment, the battle lines are not always clearly drawn. The "interfering" that the United States is often accused of with respect to the so-called "internal affairs" of other countries seems to draw sharper criticism than the persistent brutality practiced by others.

It took Pearl Harbor to finally mobilize Americans to stand up for the rest of the civilized world. Will today's attack be a similar catalyst? Only this time the real question is who will stand with America? We remain the world's premier superpower, ironically due to the exceptional reconfiguration and growth of the military and industrial complex in the United States between 1940 and 1946.

I hope that there are enough angry people around - not just Americans - who will demand that immediate and serious collective action be taken. It's become unpopular and sometimes dangerous to show support for America as it speaks out against enemies of peace - not just any peace, but one that allows people to live in freedom without having to watch their backs.

Standing by and hoping that this too will pass does not work anymore. Allow the terrorists to brutalize their neighbors at will, and next time it will be your turn. Extortionists are never satisfied until the last pocket has been emptied.

I now understand why my elderly friends might have difficulty expressing the anger that they must have felt when Pearl Harbor was attacked. Perhaps it's taken them all this time to suppress their uncomfortable feelings of pain and anguish.

Never again will I puzzle over how witnesses to history seem reluctant to relive those emotions. In another 20 years or so, I may appear to be just as detached from the anger that I feel today. Why should my distress be any more authentic?

-Gerald Osterberg

This Garden City resident is treasurer of the Edwin J. O'Hara Chapter of the American Merchant Marine Veterans.