How well I remember that Sunday afternoon. I was ice-skating on a rink the schoolhouse provided. It had a warming house, with an elderly man who helped with putting on skates and keeping that pot-bellied stove filled with wood. He had a record player that played 78 RPM and a radio that was hooked up to a loudspeaker. His favorite record was "The Skaters Waltz." It was over this loudspeaker that the following announcement was made: "Japan has bombed Pearl Harbor." It took less than 15 minutes to empty the entire rink and warming house -- we were at war.
The next day, President Franklin Roosevelt said that he didn't like war and that his wife, Eleanor, didn't like war. But Japan had bombed Pearl Harbor, so we were at war.
What a war it turned out to be. Many brave lives were lost so we could keep our freedoms. We cannot allow any nation or any political party to take them away from this great country.
MENNO L. BULLER, REDWOOD FALLS, MINN.
