TODAY

Posted at 8:08 a.m. ET

It still gives me a chill to write the words, "Sunday, December 7..."  For the parents' and grandparents' generation, December 7, 1941, which President Roosevelt called "a date that will live in infamy," was the date that changed their world.  American entered World War II, and 400,000 Americans paid the price with their lives.

That generation had just gone through the Depression, and now was fighting the largest war in history.  It would return from that war to build a superpower, would fight again in Korea, and, although it's never given credit for it, pass the civil rights laws that started breaking down racism. 

The greatest generation.  A member of that generation, Ronald Reagan, entered the pantheon of great presidents. 

Standards in America today are, er, a bit lower.  After September 11, 2001, Americans responded with the spirit that has always moved them, but the battle in the war on terror has been borne by a very narrow group within the American population.  The elites are uninvolved, even hostile, although their grandparents were on the landing beaches of World War II.

The life of every one of our fighting men and women is precious, but we have lost fewer soldiers in this current struggle, now lasting seven years, than we lost on a small Pacific island called Iwo Jima in 1945.  And yet, look at the whining, the complaining, the talk about our being "war weary," an exhausted nation, stretched to its limit.  And look at the abuse heaped on President Bush, who is probably one of the least cynical presidents we've had in the last half century.

As we recall December 7, 1941, we might think of the ways in which we can restore the parts of the American ethic that have been eroded over the years.  It would be a fitting tribute to those who died as America entered World War II, and who might wonder what their sacrifice was all about. 

December 7, 2008.