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A Date Which Will Live In Infamy1 min read

Today is Pearl Harbor day.  On this “date which will live in infamy,” as then President Franklin D. Roosevelt described it 75 years ago, the Imperial Japanese Navy launched a surprise attack on the United States naval base in Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. In total 2,503 people were killed, and 188 ships were lost in this battle. Some of the lost soldiers are still entombed beneath the USS Arizona and oil continues to leak from the ships. Reminders that the tragedy continues, especially for the comrades of these fallen soldiers. It was the tipping point in a series of threats and dragged the United States into World War II.

On August 6 and 9, 1945, the United States dropped nuclear weapons on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing over 120,000 people, which marked the end of World War II.

We have since mended relations with Japan. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will become the first leader from Japan to visit Pearl Harbor since the attack. And in May 2016, President Obama met with Shinzo Abe at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park in Japan, showing both nations, and all the world, that we might take one step back, but will always take two steps forward.

Today ask yourself if there has been an event that has been a tipping point in your life? Was it the beginning of a new chapter, or the end to another? Did you take one step backward, but two steps forward? There will always be something that will test your mettle. How you handle it and follow through when the going gets tough is what will define your character.