We must never forget Pearl Harbor

My father, Mike Ware, was a Pearl Harbor survivor. Unless pressed, Daddy didn't talk about the war. I know very little about the battles in which he fought. Without the chestful of medals that he proudly wore on his dress uniform, I would not have even known he was a part.
Once, when I was in high school, I was given an assignment of writing a paper on Pearl Harbor. I told Daddy how great it would be if I could interview him and write a first-hand account. His response to me was "You write that it was awful--the most awful, scary thing that this 24-year old Georgia boy had ever experienced." I asked no more. I had heard stories of his family and the trials that they had encountered during the depression and I knew that if Pearl Harbor was the worst of the worst, it had to have been a terrible, life-changing experience.
So today I'm thinking about my father, remembering so many of his idiosycracies and finally understanding what helped to form them. He was a brave man who fought for his country, suffered from the horrors of war, proudly wore his medals, and made his daughter proud of him and the family roots that he gave to her.