Pearl Harbor Patriots

From: Laura Spero
Length: 06:39

As Barack Obama accepted the nomination for President of the United States, he said that "Change...cannot happen without a new spirit of service, a new spirit of sacrifice. So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of responsibility, where each of us resolves to pitch in and look after not only ourselves, but each other." In this short feature, elderly people remember being called to a similar cause nearly seventy years ago, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. The world has changed in many ways since then, but do we face some of the same challenges today? What does "patriotism" mean to us now? Read the full description.

Piece Audio

Playing: Pearl Harbor Patriots
From: Laura Spero

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In the spring of 2002, six months after 9/11, a college graduate asked elderly people, "Do we require disasters in order to form a sense of Patriotism?" The result was a twenty-five minute documentary ("Patriots") in which seniors compared Pearl Harbor to 9/11, and spoke to a young generation about how the meaning of patriotism has changed in modern times. This is a 6:40, unnarrated version of that documentary, and focuses on how and why Pearl Harbor immediately changed the lives of everyone in America. 101-year-old Ester was present at the bombing of Pearl Harbor; George dropped out of high school to join the military; friends Betty (#1), Betty (#2) and Ruth remember how women's lives were forever altered, and Marian chuckles about the number of stamps required to get ketchup during food rationing. 92-year-old Lew and WWII veteran Earl ask, pointedly, what it means to be a "patriot." Period radio and music recordings provide a rich bed of sound in this short, documentary-style montage of voices that ask us to reflect on what we can learn, in 2008, from 1941.

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Piece Description

In the spring of 2002, six months after 9/11, a college graduate asked elderly people, "Do we require disasters in order to form a sense of Patriotism?" The result was a twenty-five minute documentary ("Patriots") in which seniors compared Pearl Harbor to 9/11, and spoke to a young generation about how the meaning of patriotism has changed in modern times. This is a 6:40, unnarrated version of that documentary, and focuses on how and why Pearl Harbor immediately changed the lives of everyone in America. 101-year-old Ester was present at the bombing of Pearl Harbor; George dropped out of high school to join the military; friends Betty (#1), Betty (#2) and Ruth remember how women's lives were forever altered, and Marian chuckles about the number of stamps required to get ketchup during food rationing. 92-year-old Lew and WWII veteran Earl ask, pointedly, what it means to be a "patriot." Period radio and music recordings provide a rich bed of sound in this short, documentary-style montage of voices that ask us to reflect on what we can learn, in 2008, from 1941.

Broadcast History

None

Transcript

Ester: I been all this time forgetting, and now somebody wants me to dig it up and remember it. I'll do the best I can. On a bright and sunny Sunday morning, you can't imagine a more peaceful setting, and the ships, United States ships, in the harbor, that was their home.

[Radio: Where were you on the afternoon of December 7th 1941?...]

Ester: Well as a matter of fact, I was taking a bath. That was the quickest bath I ever took.

[Bombs]

Ester: Because I knew things were happening. So I went outside. We were bombing, and the Japanese were bombing us.

[We interrupt this program...]

Earl: Everybody I think in the whole country sat glued to the radio that day. I didn?t see a person in the street or a car on the road; everybody was listening to what was happening. The news kept trickling in about how devastating it was and how they sunk our whole fleet, and how they were scr...
Read the full transcript

Timing and Cues

When Barack Obama accepted the nomination for President of the United States, he said, "This victory alone is not the change we seek. It is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen...without you. It cannot happen without a new spirit of service, a new spirit of sacrifice. So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of responsibility, where each of us resolves to pitch in and look after not only ourselves, but each other."

Americans were called to a similar cause nearly seventy years ago, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. The world has changed in many ways since then, but Obama's words ask us to consider whether we face some of the same social and economic challenges today.

Those who remember Pearl Harbor have experienced, first hand, "a spirit of responsibility and sacrifice." Even now they recall their burdens with a kind of nostalgia--about what it meant to be a patriot in 1941. And they ask us, What does it mean to be a patriot in 2008?