More than 99 percent of the students on this campus cannot answer the question “Where were you Dec. 7, 1941?” simply because they weren’t born yet. Many of our parents had not even been born.

Yet every person at Eastern can tell you where he or she was Sept. 11.

It is hard for our generation to relate to the stories our parents and grandparents tell us about World War I and II or the Depression or Vietnam. We had experienced nothing in the last 20 years to associate with that kind of fear, anger and social upheaval.

Then we watched the World Trade Center fall and the Pentagon burn.

Today marks the 60th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, an event that is almost a myth to today’s college students. A few months ago, we couldn’t understand what that attack meant to America even in a time with instant news footage, on-the-scene reporting, 24-hour news channels or three-dimensional graphics.

Now Dec. 7 should take on a new meaning for us teenagers and twenty-somethings.

Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and New York City, N.Y., are, both geographically and in social importance, at opposite ends of the American spectrum. They now, however, have a horrible kinship that we owe to ourselves, our nation and the thousands of men and women who died on Dec. 7, 1941, and Sept. 11, 2001, to honor as best we can.

If you posted an American flag on the afternoon of Sept. 11, you can thank a war veteran or visit a cemetery today.

Eastern students now are mobilizing as part of the National Guard to support the war on terrorism. They will probably not see combat, but that is irrelevant. They are doing their duty as members of the military, and it behooves all of us to perform our duty as American citizens.

Honor those who died to preserve your way of life, and remember the innocent who died as sacrificial lambs at the hands of those who would have us all meet the same fate.