Saturday is the 78th anniversary of Japan’ s sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. It was early on a Sunday morning that the attack killed over 2,000 people.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt called December 7, 1941 a day of infamy. I was 7 years old at that time and can still recall that Sunday like it was yesterday.

I was sitting with my dad in the football stadium at Leon Godchaux High School in Reserve. St. James High School was playing Reserve. I don’t remember the score, but only that Herman Duhe of Reserve ran a kickoff back for a touchdown. Herman, one of the best high school players at that time, later played professional football.

I can still feel the fear that came over my dad when it was announced that Pearl Harbor had been attacked.

I remember listening to war news on the radio for the next three or four years. I remember my grandmother worrying, because she had four sons serving their country. I can still remember playing baseball in St. Peter’s schoolyard when word came that one of my uncles was killed in Europe. I remember the food rationing, especially sugar and butter.

I know exactly where I was when I heard that the United States had dropped the A-bomb. I was at the Reserve Community Club swimming pool. I remember the end of the war and the pride that we Americans had. We were together. We had won the war.

If you ever get the chance, read the book the local School Board published right after the war recognizing the 31 men from St. John Parish who died during the war.

In Tom Brokaw’s book, “The Greatest Generation,” he stated that the men and women who served in the Second World War faced great odds and a late start, but they did not protest. They succeeded on every front. They won the war; they saved the world. They came home to joyous and short-lived celebrations and immediately began the task of rebuilding their lives and the world they wanted.

I somehow feel that those who gave so much would be disappointed at what America and the communities they came back to have become.

If you have any questions, or comments, please write to Harold Keller at Get High on Life, P.O. Drawer U, Reserve, LA 70084, call 985-652-8477, or email hkeller@comcast.net.