Prayer, Plain and Simple

Prayer, Plain and Simple

Pearl Harbor Day: A Prayer for Those who Fought to Keep us Free

posted by Mark Herringshaw

Today, as President Roosevelt declared it, we remember a “Day that will live in infamy.” On December 7, 1941 Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, an act that pulled the United States into the Second World War, perhaps the darkest, most costly, and civilization-altering conflict in the history of human existence. Oral historian Studs Terkel called it “The Good War.” And while no war is truly good, this conflict pitted institutional tyranny against champions of religious and civil liberty, and the value of individual human life. In the end, at unimaginable cost, freedom prevailed. Today I’m remembering those who paid this price to secure a victory for hope and virtue. I offer this prayer of thanks for their strength of resolve.

“Dear God, not everything that happens in your world reflects your goodness and grace. You have given us freedom to choose, and with that freedom sometimes we choose to do evil. Today we remember a time of great evil in our world – we remember World War II. We also remember those who stood their ground against great evil, those who fought here at home and on the battle fronts to insure that evil would not prevail. We thank you that in the hour of need you gave men and women the strength and resolve to stand, whatever the cost. May those brave souls who still remain here with us feel today your hand of favor and strength. In their last years here on earth give them renewed hope and an awareness of our gratitude for their bravery and sacrifice. May we never forget them, and may you honor them according to the grace you gave in those days and according to their response to that grace, then and now. In Jesus…”



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Henrietta22

posted December 7, 2009 at 1:51 pm


Another Dec. 7, how well I remember it all, and my friends who were in the same age group, 5th graders. We watched it all happen, were a part of it here at home. Our uncles, cousins, brothers all went or were envolved at home by it. We watched our relatives die, or come home along with everyone else. Our nation was united as it hasn’t been since. We stood on long lines for sugar, womens stockings, etc. with our Moms. We counted ration stamps for shoes, other nicities. If you didn’t have a bike when it started you waited until the war was over to get one. There was wall to wall uniforms wherever you went if you lived on the coasts. Your Dad was an Air Raid Warden, and those shades better be drawn when the siren went off! You all wore cardboard ID’s around your neck when you were in school, and you sat on paper in the halls when the sirens sounded in the school, to simulate an Air Raid. There was taxes on candy, cosmetics, and a whole lot of other things. My generation grew up and we graduated just in time and started college, to find ourselves involved in another war, Korea, some went, some found ways to stay out of it. A friend lost her husband and a new father, the first year and I lost a friend who was in pre-med. I met my husband to be in the second year, and off he went for nineteen months! After one injury on the ground, and a plane crash with broken ribs he came home and we were married. Some things work out.



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