Growing Up

"I was flabbergasted when the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor brought us into the war at the end of 1941. Though by then sixteen, I was still so innocent of the world around me that American involvment had seemed impossible. And Japan! Why in the world had Japan attacked us? I didn't know Japan had anything against us. Sitting by the small radio in the kitchen at Marydell Road that Sunday night, listening to the bulletins from Washington, I though the Japanese attack was ridiculous. A tiny country like that, nothing more than a few specks on the map, a country whose products were synonymous with junk, a pipsqueak country on the far side of the earth--it was grotesque that such a country should take on might America. Settling their hash whould be as easy as squashing an ant."