The loss of a generation.

It's with a twinge of sadness that I read this story about the survivors of Pearl Harbor meeting for likely the last time at the site where almost 2,400 died 65 years ago today.

Couple that with the rash of recent stories about the last surviving veterans of World War I - there are fewer than 15 left - and you start to feel an emptiness, a sense that we are beginning to witness America's golden age disappear into history. In some 25-30 years, we'll see the last of the surviving WWII vets pass on, followed shortly thereafter by the last of the Korean War vets.

And that'll be it. Our last links to a different time and place will be dust. The '60s brought about a change in the perception of how and why wars are fought; the rise of a supposedly "loyal" opposition made Vietnam and all future wars greatly controversial and unpopular. Hanoi Jane, "No Blood For Oil!", Cindy Sheehan ... it's nearly impossible to consider that the whole mess of them could have thrived during the Great Wars and Police Actions of the 20th century. But we're hellbent on giving them "equal time" in the media, and people who are soft of mind and spirit look at them and say, "You know? They've got a point! End Bush's illegal war!"

I don't doubt that there existed an opposition to the wars in the first half of the 20th century, and not just among Quakers. Regardless, I'd hate to imagine how a "loyal" opposition would have undermined those efforts if it had at its disposal in those days the means of communicating its messages that exist today.

Anyway, I'm off-topic. The point is this: Please take a moment today to consider what happened in Hawaii 65 years ago.

May God bless all of those who served their country.