Wednesday, November 29, 2000
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Wednesday, November 29, 2000 |
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What a difference that day Dec. 7, 1941 made to us Last year, on Dec. 7, I was bemoaning the fact that no one paid any attention to the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor any more. I was a freshman at Indiana University and alone in my dorm room when the radio program was interrupted to announce the attack. I guess I wanted to find another person that was alive that day with whom to remember and share recollections and feelings. One of my daughters responded to my complaints by saying that she understood that it was an important date to my generation but it had nothing to do with her. One of my infamous tirades followed. I reminded her that if the events of that day had never happened, she would not be who she is. A first-generation Polish pilot from Buffalo, N.Y., would never have met a transplanted farm girl from Indiana in the restaurant of the old Hangar Hotel in Hapeville, Ga. He was training in C-47s with Delta and Eastern as assigned by the Ferry Command. She was working for Army Finance at Candler Field. Two years later, they were married. This daughter to whom I was raving is the sixth of seven children resulting from that chance meeting. If the Japanese had not attacked Pearl Harbor, I told her, you would not have gone to many schools in different states and countries. You would not have had to spell your surname and answered to many botched attempts to pronounce it. Words such as Babcia and Dziandzia would not have been in your vocabulary. You would never have been taught to make perrogi and torte. You would not have inherited the "bluest eyes in the Air Force!" You would not have cousins that look like your brothers alive and well in Olystyn, Poland. You would not have called a B-47 a "Daddy Go," nor would you have stood quietly at a graveside at Arlington National Cemetery while Taps was played. You are who you are because of that day, I reminded her. She was very quiet and, finally, so was I. May I suggest that this year on Dec. 7, you ask your grandparents or great-grandparents about their memories of that day and what effect it had on their lives and, in turn, on yours. Rene Dziejowski Fayetteville
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