Sunset

The death of former U.S. President and World War II veteran George H.W. Bush puts a slightly different spotlight on this Dec. 7, which is sometimes called Pearl Harbor Day. At the United States Navy base in Hawaii, ceremonies will proceed this year without any survivors of the USS Arizona, the battleship which sustained the heaviest crew losses in the Dec. 7, 1941 attack.

About 300 of the Arizona's 1,100 crew survived the attack and sinking of their ship. This year, five men, all in their 90s, remain. None of them, though, are able to make the journey to Hawaii.

A couple of the people in the story are concerned that the loss of World War II veterans will somehow distance us from those events and cause them to fade in national memory. It will indeed be sad when the last WWII veteran passes away and we lose direct contact with an event that changed the world forever.

But on the other hand, that's the way of things. As the men who fought in World War I passed away, the impact of the Armistice signed on November 11 lessened. So we got Veteran's Day. Succeeding generations interpret event anniversaries in ways that connect to and affect their own times rather than just do the exact same things by rote that were always done. I recognize the importance of November 22 in our nation's history, as the assassination of then-President John F. Kennedy had an impact on society and culture that in many ways still echoes. But I was born after it happened, so I have no direct connection to it and it does not affect me like it did those who can remember it.

On Sept. 12, 2019, people will become eligible to vote who will have lived their entire lives after 9/11. It will have shaped the world in which they live, but it will still be something they did not experience and did not live through. Whether that kind of turning of time's wheel is for the best or not, it's not open for debate or change. The day will come when those last five crewmen rejoin their shipmates, and no one living can tell visitors to the Arizona memorial why it's there the way that they could. Those visitors -- us, and those who come after -- may wonder. There's nothing wrong with that. The only wrong will be if, after wondering, none of them ask. That's the part that worries me.