Some days are ordinary and we can barely remember them and others are unique. Today is not at all ordinary. This is December 7. It is known as Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day. It is a day that changed the world. It certainly changed mine.

There are very few people still living who experienced the day that the U.S. Naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii was attacked. As far as soldiers and sailors who were there, Lou Conter, 101, of California is the last living survivor of the U.S.S. Arizona – the ship that had the largest number of fatalities that day (1,102 out of the 2,403 souls who perished) and only one of six military personnel present that day who are still living. In fact, people who were schoolchildren, ages 8-18, on December 7, 1941, are now between the ages of 90-100. That means we have very few people left who actually remember the day that we now set aside as a day of remembrance. What happens when a generation passes away? Oftentimes their values die with them. What they deem important gets brushed aside. I think that would be a tragedy if that were to happen with this day. Why? Because this is the day that pulled the United States into the global conflict we have called World War II. America quickly found itself at war in two theaters.

WWII is marked in history, but it still begs the answer, why is this day of remembrance important any longer? We don’t have a day of remembrance on June 18, the day the Duke of Wellington defeated Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815, or on October 19, the day Washington defeated Cornwallis in Yorktown in 1781. Those days are also important to history, so why do we need a day of remembrance on December 7 for Pearl Harbor? Those historical days were big, but they do not compare to the vastness of WWII.

The enormity of WWII is staggering. 16 million American men and women were sent around the globe to combat their enemies. That was 12 percent of the U.S. population at that time. 60 million people would die in this war – by far the largest number of fatalities of any war. Many more civilians died than soldiers. Old empires gave way to new superpowers. From that point until now, new alliances would shape the world's political scene.

The magnitude of WWII is worth noting, but is the sheer size of this war still worthy of a day of remembrance? I think it is. Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day is not set aside to remember some of the most unthinkable atrocities that have ever happened, but that evil was suppressed. Regimes bent on genocide were defeated. Pearl Harbor is a day to remember the sacrifices of heroes who started to push back against evil. I think if we forget such days, the real horror of WWII could happen again. Why do we commemorate this day? The answer is simple: so it won’t happen again.

How did this day change my life? For one, my parents were 15 and 16 years old when Pearl Harbor was attacked. They had friends in school who enlisted and never came back home. Three years later, my dad was drafted to serve in the Pacific Theater. What he experienced changed his perspective on life. He was a man of compassion for the down and out because he had seen with his own eyes how bad it can get. My parents raised me and my siblings with a can-do attitude. They never let the obstacles in life get them down because they had seen much worse. When did that kind of attitude start with them? In many ways, it began on December 7, 1941.

Some days are unlike others. This one is special. Remember Pearl Harbor.