On December 7th, 1941, it was our custom to get up and attend church. However on this morning several of us had fever, sore throats and a hacking cough. So our parents kept us all in bed giving us the usual home remedies. I was half asleep when suddenly I began to hear church bells ringing. At first, there were only a few and then more and more joined in until bells were ringing throughout the entire city of Columbus, Georgia. We quickly got out of bed and looked out the window and saw so many of our neighbors in the street talking with each other and trying to find out just what was going on. My father was sitting listening to the radio and suddenly, he got up and told us that Pearl Harbor had been attacked. We saw his face, pale and drawn, for he knew what it all meant. He had three sons and a son-in-law who would be involved in war. He had been through World War 1 and had endured the sufferings of that war. This time it would be different. He would see his sons leave to fight, just as his mother had done in the first one. Our city that day was in amazement for we all were saying,"How could this have happened?. And so for the next years to come, I saw my brothers go to war, one died, my brother-in-law was a prisoner of the Germans, one brother wounded severely on Iwo Jima, one wounded in Germany who later died from his wounds. I later married and my husband with the 82nd Air Borne was injured and so we as so many others felt the horrors of that war. And this was the war that would end all wars. I have since had a son wounded in Vet Nam suffering from Agent Orange, and a grandson just returned from Iraq. As long as men are greedy, there will be wars and I praise God that he allowed me to be an American where the true citizens of this country know that freed om must be fought for and that we will have to defend it throughout the life of mankind. Our young men, willing to go in 1941, who have gone each time they have been called upon, deserve our heartfelt thanks, our praise and our prayers. May God Bless America Pat in FL