While reflecting on Pearl Harbor this week, as he does every year at this time, the Ole Seagull's thoughts went to the price a nation and its people pay for the freedoms and quality of life they enjoy: "eternal vigilance, action and unity." The sacrifices made at Pearl Harbor on that fateful morning of December 7, 1941, and the cost to our country of the 9/11 attack solemnly testify to what happens when that price is not wholly paid.
"Vigilance" means being "vigilant." The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines "vigilant" as "Carefully noticing problems or signs of danger." One of the first warnings of the importance of vigilance came 151 years before Pearl Harbor and 211 years before September 11, 2001. In a 1790 speech, John Philpott Curran said, "The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance, which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt."
In the 1980s, decades before September 11, 2001, George P. Shultz, U.S. Secretary of State under President Ronald Reagan, said, "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance and a willingness to act in its defense." Yet, America was ill-prepared for September 11, 2001. The horrific event had a big impact on America's way of life. This is another consequence of not being vigilant and being willing to act. Most of the time, the warning for "vigilance" primarily applies to physical attacks on America by its enemies. In his 1838 Lyceum address, a young Abraham Lincoln warns of another, more alarming situation where vigilance is critical. He said, "At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time or die by suicide."
Jesus Christ, the world's only perfect man, said, "Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand." Today, December 2, 2024, an Ole Seagull wonders how many reasonable people would describe our Nation as anything less than "divided?"
Many have said, in one way or another, "Those who ignore the lessons of history will repeat it." With the world situation as it is and our divided Nation, an Ole Seagull's prayer is that our Nation has the vigilance to detect danger and the unity to act before it impacts. Can anyone practically believe that failure to react to the warnings in a united way will be any less horrible today than in 1941 or 2001?
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