At 11 years and 12 days old, I did not comprehend the news I received on that Sunday afternoon when I learned that the (Japanese) had bombed Pearl Harbor.

I did not know what Pearl Harbor was, where it was or what it would mean to me or anyone else. And like millions of others, we all went on an accelerated learning curve to learn just what it all meant.

I clearly remember learning about Army men, and sailors, and Marines, and aviators, and Seabees, and Merchant Marines, and Rosie the Riveter, and kamikaze pilots, and Savings Stamps, and War Bonds, and collecting scrap metal, and Victory Gardens, and rationing of gasoline, sugar and other grocery items.

I also learned about military funerals, and Gold Star Mothers, and buglers playing Taps over flag-draped caskets. We learned about B-17's and Spitfires, flame-throwers and hand grenades, bayonets and jeeps, machine guns and blockbuster bombs, C-rations and U-boats, aircraft carriers and destroyers, radar and PT boats.

My generation earned a masters degree in technology in a few short years as our world changed. Technology was exploding and new exciting things were built to help us overcome the challenge of continuing to live in a world that we knew would never be the same.

Our hope was that we would continue to be a free people and we could somehow bring our boys home safely.

For me my greatest learning took place well after the event was completed. It took me some time to comprehend the enormity of the task that our fellow American service men had undertaken and completed. Their sacrifice in pain, suffering and death can never be repaid as it is impossible to repay that which is priceless.

If the end of the Pearl Harbor story had been the end of wars, it would have been a truly historic event. Yet today a new generation of men and women are giving their lives on our behalf in far off places.

I have no mastery of world events, nor am I a historian, however in more than three quarters of this last century I have gleaned a few truths.

As long as the world is divided over religion, and people are willing to kill others who do not believe as they do, the world will continue to be at war.

I feel certain that I will not live long enough to see a worldwide freedom of religion movement. I also feel certain that we will continue to see wars spread over many more parts of the world until the people no longer tolerate religious dictatorship.

Our country's founders found the will to break away from an oppressive king and a strong church in establishing America as a civil government free from religious oversight. I fully believe that lesson can be learned again by others all over the world. Should this come to pass, the world will wake up and find that wars are no longer needed and that (peace and) prosperity is available to all people.

Please, before you go to bed tonight, say a prayer for our fellow Americans who wear our uniforms.