Disclaimer: I am not associated with the people of Pearl Harbor in any way professionally.

Author's Note: If there are any other characters you think I should write about, please review and tell me who. J

I know that those who survived are the lucky ones.  At least I think they are the lucky ones.  Because they can go on and turn away from this war-stricken place that is a gravesite for so many.  I am one of those who have survived.  I feel relieved that I lived, but guilty that I did and my friends and comrades did not.  But us lucky ones, we have to live.  For a sailor aboard one of the ships, to live with the feel of the explosions sending shudders through the ship, ripping it apart.  To watch friends be hurled into the air, to be tossed into the churning sea, to be burned by oil and fire.  To play memories of burning water lined with blood through their heads.  For a nurse, to watch soldiers die beneath their hands.  To hear the screams of the wounded and dying over and over.  To watch the blood pour from the open wounds.  To relive the chaos, the nightmare that was the once-pristine hospital.  For a pilot in the skies, to watch a comrade go spinning through the sky, wings and engines ablaze, to billow into a fireball death.  To hear that dreaded call, "Mayday!  Mayday!" as a friend hurtles toward the sea.  To see the bloodstained, bullet-ridden cockpits of planes afterwards.  For any military person, to see close friends die, maybe from afar, is a nightmare.  Or worse yet, seeing a friend die close by.  For me, I felt the life drain from the body of my best friend.  I held him as he fought for breath, knowing that he was to die.  He was a brave man, my friend, but even brave men have to die.  I have to live with the memory of that man dying in my arms, watching the light in his eyes dim and finally fade away into nothingness.  Other friends are gone, some who were only fighting to save lives as doctors and nurses, others who were fighting for our nation.  Still, we showed the world that we could fight back.  We showed Americans that we could fight.