On December 8, 1941, President F. D. Roosevelt called December 7, “a date which will live in infamy.”

Indeed that day and the words of his <em>Infamy Speech</em> <a href="https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/PTO/EastWind/Infamy.html">https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/PTO/EastWind/Infamy.html</a>   have become synonymous with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Within an hour of that speech, Congress passed a Declaration of War thrusting the United States headlong into World War II.

Roosevelt’s words had as profound an impact on our nation as the actual attack. Recruiting stations were jammed with surges of volunteers. And, when the war ended, the world was not the same.

Thirty years after Pearl Harbor another event occurred giving us a new date we will always remember-- September 11, 2001.

Pearl Harbor was before my time. The 2001 Terrorists Attacks were not.

My heart rate still surges on the anniversary of 9-11as I remember the anxiety of waiting to know all our family members were safe. Vivid memories of that day watching Katy Couric describe the planes crashing into the Twin Towers bounce around in my head. We’d had lunch in the Towers with family members only two months before. That made the attack very personal.

It’s been fifteen years now.

No matter how long it’s been from either date of infamy, one thing remains constant. Nearly 3,000 people in New York, Virginia, and Pennsylvania lost their lives on 9-11. World War II causalities numbered over 60 million. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties</a>

Pausing on the anniversary of both events allows us to honor those we’ve lost.