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Big MBy WKI.DON LACY Today marks the lt;5th anniversary of the bomb i ng f Pearl Harbor by the Japanese the atta rk that plunged the I -filled States into the holocaust ktvw n as WurW War IIWhere were vou that day when vou first heard the news' Marty of you ,if course were not even alive lt;lt;n that day of in famy and othersaretoo young to rememt**r Many of us. blt;»wever do recall the announcement (.f the momentous event that char^fad the course, if history anti can remem her what we were doing at the Ume and how we reactedI was a boy 14 living at home with my parents in the town of Comanche Tex I had a Fort Worth Star Telegram route and I vividly remember reading the screaming headline on the frontpage of the sundav I Vc 7 is sue of that newspaper as I prepared to make my morning deliveriesIV spite being Just a high school sophomore at the time I was acutely lt;«ware of what the Japan ese attack meant ami my heart nearly stopped beating in my s oung breastThe next day 1 and the rest of the world heard the message that seamed inevitable The United States was at war1 clearly recall that all the 250 or so mem bers of the Comanche High Sc hool student body were called into the school auditorium to 11s ten to a solemn radio ad dress by PresidentFranklin P Roosevelt A hush fell over the youth ful audience as the Pres ident s voice crackled a cross the airwaves de scribing the vicious as sault by the Japanese on (j s. installations atPearl Harbor in the Pacific and the frightful loss of life and property that resultedHe then firmly an nounced that the United States was declaring war on Japan and the Axis powersMy recollections ofthat moment are crystal clear, although 35 years have come and gone since the day 1 recall that my thoughts turned immedi ately to my three older brothers who were al most sure to see war time service Asitturned out, not only they but myself as well wore mill tary uniforms before theJapanese surrender in •\ugust *f U*4rFortunately all four of the five Lacy brothers who saw World War U military service re turned home safely af ter the mighty conflagra tion. although one sus t a toed non permanent in juries in the Hattie of the Bulge tn U»441 still harbor strong memories life on the , Home Front during m\ remaining high school days and one s ear of col lege in W.rkl W ir 11 We younger people saw vuur brothers and their .friends go off to war .leaving broken hearted {mothers and fathers be jhind We learned to live ,with gasoline sugar and shoe rationing ami short *ages of mam com mod ities We got to knlt;*w jthe anxietv of waiting for tletters from friemis and vrelatives overseas ami of ,reading casualty lists in (newspapers keeping our ^fingers crossed that a ,loved tine s name would ,not appear jWe - ring atiout R«»sie ,the Riveter and ’The White Cliffs of Dover {We danced dreamily to Glenn Miller tunes and ,listened to a vexing skin jny k i cl named Sinatra croon the songs of theday |\nd with an 1 nth birth day coming up in Januarv (of 1945 ami the war still raging in both Europe and the South Pacific I knew that the end of the next college semester would find me going into ser v iceBy the time I took the oath in May that year however President Roosevelt was dead, Har ry Truman was president and Adolph Hitler had thrown in the towel 1 had been in uniform only a few months when the atomic bomb fell on Hiro shima ami the Japanese capitulatedSince I got into service so war the end of hos tilities, I did not goover seas and was eligible for dlsctarge after com pleting less than two years of serviceIt’s hard to realizethat 35 years have elapsed since the start of World War II For a large seg ment of the current pop ulatlon, the war is only something to read about in history books and hear parents and grandparents tell about To many of us. though, It was a personal experience and remains as an indelible memory
Newspaper Details
Mesquite Daily News
Mesquite, Texas, US
Tue, Dec 07, 1976
Page 1
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
USA 05 Jun 2024
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