People died, including civilians ...

The USS Arizona still remains at the bottom of the shallow harbor with her 1,177 crew members. Her sunken hull can be seen below the surface and her Number 3 gun turret barbette pokes above the water line. A second visible gun barbette remains submerged. Oil continues to slowly seep from her damaged fuel tanks.

On December 7 the battleship was carrying 1.5 million gallons of fuel in preparation to sail for the mainland. That fuel is slowly leaking out a little bit every day producing an oil slick which has been dubbed the "Tears of Arizona." The National Park Service estimates it may take another 500 years for all the oil to escape.

The next day, December 8, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke before a joint session of Congress.

"Yesterday, December 7, 1941 -- a date which will live in infamy -- the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan," the President prefaced. "As Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense. ... I ask that the Congress declare, that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire."

AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

The entirety of the Civil War -- the War Between the States -- was fought on American soul. The Civil War was another four-year-long conflict (1861-1865). In the end the American President Abraham Lincoln -- who was assassinated by a Southern sympathizer -- lay dead; as well as Episcopal Bishop Leonidas Polk (I Louisiana), who died in the heat of battle. Bishop Polk was also a general in the Confederate Army and was killed in action.

The United States National Park Service places the Civil War killed-in-action death toll at 204,100 (Union: 110,100 & Confederate: 94,000, including Bishop Polk). Another 388,580 died of wartime sicknesses and disease (Union 225,580 & Confederate: 164,000). In addition at least 50,000 civilians from both sides died due to wartime hostilities.

People died, including civilians ...

UKRAINIANS AT WAR

On February 24, 2022 the Russian Army marched into Ukraine with the intent of making it a part of Russia which annexed Ukraine in 2014 in an escalation of the 2019 annexation and occupation of Crimea. The Ukrainian people are not taking the ground invasion of their land sitting down, they are fighting back to protect the integrity of their borders.

According to the Ukrainian state news agency, Ukrinform, 16,502 Ukraine civilians have died since Vladimir Putin's full scale invasion up until the end of September 2023. Many of the dead civilian Ukrainians were found in mass graves as Russian forces are forced to retreat.

The New York Times, based upon US government figures, places the Ukrainian military combat death toll at 70,000 with the Russian battle deaths at 120,000 and climbing.

People died, including civilians ...

TWIN TOWERS

Tuesday, September 11, 2001 was a beautiful day in New York. The skies were blue and cloudless. Summer was waning and temperatures hovered in the upper 60s and lower 70s. Fall was just around the corner, and a few leaves were beginning to change from green to red, yellow, orange and gold. New Yorkers were stirring and heading to work. Manhattan was filling up with commuters from outlying communities and neighborhoods for another late midweek work day.

Suddenly the silver with red, white, and blue stripes American Airlines Flight 11 became visible in the sunlit morning sky. Flight 11 had originally taken off from Logan Airport in Boston and was headed to Los Angeles. However, the Boeing 767 airliner, with 81 passengers and 11 crew members, was hijacked en route by five al-Qaeda terrorist hijackers. It was diverted over central New York State and then was deliberately flown into the North Tower at 8:46 am. The 1974 disaster film, The Towering Inferno, became a reality as black smoke billowed from World Trade Center Tower 1.

Another Los Angeles-bound jetliner taking off from Logan was also highjacked. United Flight 175, carrying a crew of nine and 51 passengers was also overtaken by five al-Qaeda terrorists who turned the wide-body blue and white Boeing 767 around over New Jersey and headed directly for Manhattan -- destination World Trade Center Tower 2.

Flight 175's flight path into the South Tower was broadcast live. At 9:03 AM millions of people saw the jet being flown into the tower and it immediately burst into flames. All aboard were instantly killed. Less than an hour later at 9:59 AM the South Tower pancaked down followed by the North Tower at 10:28 AM burying the dead under tons of debris. It took eight months of crews working 24 hours a day in cold and heat, rain and snow, darkness and light to clear Ground Zero.

People died, including civilians ...

The Twin Towers were not the only terrorist targets on that sunny September Tuesday. The Pentagon and the Capitol or White House in Washington, DC were also supposedly targeted. American Flight 77 hit its target -- the Pentagon. However, United Flight 93 fell short of its planned Washington objective when the hijacked passengers revolted against the terrorists and forced the jetliner to crash into an open Somerset County, Pennsylvania field. All 44 souls aboard died.

But over in Arlington, Virginia the hijacked Boeing 767 struck the Pentagon where 125 died when American Flight 77 was flown into the western wall of the mammoth five-sided geometric structure. Seventy civilian lives were lost on the ground that day along with 55 military personnel as well as the 59 passengers and crew aboard the suicide airplane with their five al-Qaeda hijackers.

In all 19 al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four American civilian airliners and turned them into suicide bombers spreading their destruction across three states -- New York, Virginia, and Pennsylvania.

In all 2,977 people died on that sunny September day including civilians, first responders -- including a priest, policemen, firemen, military personnel, airplane passengers and suicidal terrorists. Most of the deaths that day were civilians.

People died, including civilians ...

The terrorist Pentagon hit came 60 years to the day when ground was initially broken on September 11, 1941 for the imposing 6.6 million square foot edifice.The Pentagon was designed to house the then United States Department of War.

During the Great War (1914-1918) the Department of War was fast outgrowing the Munitions Building which was first constructed in 1918. In 1939 war again broke out in Europe and the writing was on the wall -- it would be only a matter of time before the United States was drawn into the burgeoning European conflict. So the Pentagon was planned, Congress approved, and construction begun.

Less than three months later on December 7, 1941, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. The next day (Dec. 8, 1941) President Roosevelt declared war. It became critical that the Pentagon be completed as soon as possible. America was at war.

Nowadays the Pentagon houses 23,000 military members and civilian employees as well as another 3,000 non-defense support personnel. On September 11, 2001 the Pentagon lost 125 of its employees.

People died, including civilians ...

MODERN WARFARE

Modern warfare started to come into being during the American Civil War. True, horses were still the main form of transportation, but trains were starting to run as well as steam-powered paddle-wheel boats.

The famed 1862 Battle of the Monitor and Merrimack took place between two steam-powered ironclad warships the USS Monitor and CSS Virginia (the Merrimack).

World War I, originally called the Great War because of its scope, was thought to be "the war to end all wars." But that didn't happen. Another war happened 20 years later and the Great War became World War I as World War II geared up.

The Great War brought in motorized armament -- motor vehicles, tanks, airplanes and submarines. Death tolls went up for both the military and civilians.

The First World War battlefield military deaths include 4.8 million for the Allied Powers and 3.2 million for the Central Powers. Civilian combat-related deaths included 620,000 for the Allied Powers and 1.6 million for the Central Powers.

As many as another five to eight million civilians died due to war-related issues -- lack of food, medicine, and housing resulting in homelessness, malnutrition, famine, starvation and disease ...

People died, including civilians ...

Twenty years later men learned how to more efficiently kill their family, friends, neighbors and enemies. World War Two death toll sky-rocketed to 25,500,000 military deaths with another 29,500,000 civilian deaths which were then classified as "collateral damage."

The military learned "strategic bombing" methods with Allied and Axis bombers dropping deadly bombs on densely populated cities throughout Europe -- London, Rotterdam, Tokyo, Cologne, Warsaw, Milan, Nice, The Hague, Budapest, Frankfort, Paris, Berlin ...

Collateral damage bombing deaths occurred in England (60,000); China (350,00); France (67,000); Holland (10,000); Poland (50,000); Russia (500,000); Yugoslavia (17,000); Germany (635,000); Italy (100,000) as well as more civilian deaths were recorded in Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Thailand.

Adolf Hitler had his own list of wartime atrocities: History records the six million Jews who died during the Holocaust. Then there were the cruel Nazi concentration camps with Hitler's Third Reich freely and unabashedly participating in unbelievable war crimes against humanity.

But it was the atomic bombing of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki which brought World War II to a screeching halt. Upwards to 20,000 died in Hiroshima and another 80,000 died in Nagasaki.

World War II, which became the deadliest military conflict in history with 80 million people dying directly or indirectly from the effects of the global war, has basically faded into history. Nowadays it's a history book lesson.

Today there are few alive who remember the empty and scarred shells of bombed out buildings in London, or Berlin, or Tokyo. The memory of the hardships that civilians faced during wartime has faded.

Only a handful of upper 90-year-olds were alive during World War II. England's Queen Elizabeth II died 14 months ago at the age of 96. She was a teenager during World War II. But upon turning 18 she responded to the call of the National Service Act calling for young women volunteers to help in the war effort and Princess Elizabeth became a driver and mechanic wearing the uniform of the Auxiliary Territorial Service.

Former US President Jimmy Carter, who just turned 99, saw military service but after World War II officially ended. He joined the Navy in 1946. Also seeing World War II era military service was former Japanese Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama who was a part of the Imperial Japanese Army from 1944-1945. He is to turn 100 in March 2024.

Other still-living former world leaders were too young to be in their country's military during the Second World War: Former Chairman of the Soviet Council of Ministers Nikolai Ryzhkov was a teenager during the war; and Holland's former Prime Minister Dries van Agt was a child; as well as King Albert II of Belgium and former Emperor of Japan Akihoto, whose father Hirohito lead Japan into World War II and approved of the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

There is no living memory from today's crop of world leaders of the actual horrors of a waged war. They are either too young to remember World War II or they were born after September 2, 1945. They don't have from experience an understand the human cost of war -- the civilian cost of war -- civilians die!

Pope Francis was born in 1936 and President Joe Biden was born in 1942.

Those born after World War II include: Baby Boomers England's King Charles III (1948); Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu (1949); Russia's Vladimir Putin (1952); Japan's Naruhito (1960); and Ukraine's Gen Xer Volodymyr Zelenskyy (1978).

It is this lack of memory, the realization that civilians are a natural casualty of war, which is fuelling the antiwar protests spreading across the world.

People died, including civilians ...

ISRAEL IS AT WAR

"We are at war! " Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared following the Hamas incursion into Israel on October 7. " ... not an 'operation,' not a 'round,' but at war."

The declared war is against the Hamas -- the Islamic Resistance Movement which is based in the Gaza Strip.

The surprise Hamas attack resulted in the largest number of Jewish casualties in a single day since the Holocaust. Now Israel is fighting for her very existence as an independent sovereign nation.

The Hamas' sole goal is to wipe Israel off the map once and for all. The Hamas, a Islamic terrorist group, is not opposed to using the scorched earth method of warfare or engage in war crimes against civilians to achieve its desired goal -- total and permanent destruction of Israel.

People around the globe are screaming that civilians have died, civilians are dying, and civilians will continue to die as a result of Israel defending its borders from the Hamas.

People died, including civilians ...

NATURE OF THE BEAST

People dying is a part of war. Civilians dying is an unavoidable part of war. It's the nature of the beast.

In a classic M*A*S*H episode Capt. Hawkeye Pierce's childhood friend dies on his operating table as a result of injuries received in combat. Hawkeye is beside himself with anger and grief

Col. Henry Blake offers some sage advice: "All I know is what they taught me in Command School -- there are certain rules about war. Rule Number One is: 'In a war young men die;' Rule Number Two is: 'Doctors can't change Rule Number One.'"

People died, including civilians ...

War is tragic. Any war. Ever since Cain killed Abel men have turned to violence to solve their problems. Since then, war has dominated human history. The litany of war is long and growing.

Some of the wars that have been fought during the past 500 years include: the Cologne War (1583-1588); the 30 Years War (1618-1648); the Three Kingdoms War (1639-1653); the Queen Anne's War (1702-1713); the Chickasaw War (1721-1763); the French & Indian Wars (1754-1763); the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783); the War of Hawaiian Unification (1782-1810); the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815); the New Zealand War (1845-1872); the American Civil War (1861-1865); the Powder River Range War (1889-1893); the Banana Wars (1898-1934); the Korean War (1950-1953); the Viet Nam War (1955-1975); the Six-Day War (1967); the Yom Kipper War (1973); the Iraqi War (1978-1981); the Falkland Islands War (1982); the Gulf War (1990-1991); the War on Terror (2001-2021); the Ukraine War (Since February 2022); and the Israeli-Hamas War (Since October 7, 2023) ...

People died, including civilians ...

The Israeli war could be a long drawn-out declared war, another four-year conflict which draws in other nations. The pure fact is that people are going to die, including civilians.

Mary Ann Mueller is a journalist living in Texas. She is a regular contributor to VirtueOnline.