There is a special place near Honolulu, Hawaii, where the sea meets the sky. People go there to remember, and to contemplate how the world has changed—and how it has not.
That place is Pearl Harbor, the site of the biggest foreign attack on U.S. soil in history—until September 11. Last Friday, December 7, was the 60th anniversary of the "date which will live in infamy," as President Franklin D. Roosevelt put it. More than 2,300 Americans were killed in the 1941 Japanese attack on the U.S. naval base in Pearl Harbor. The next day, the U.S. joined the fight in World War II.
To mark the anniversary, survivors gathered at the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial in Hawaii just before 8 a.m., the time of the attack. Some wept. "The whole world changed for us," said veteran Douglas Phillips.
Some of this year's heroes—New York City rescue workers—gathered in Hawaii to honor the heroes of decades before.
President Bush paid tribute to the veterans. "The bitterness of 60 years ago has passed away," he said. "For Americans who fought [the war], what remains is the lasting honor of service in a great cause."