This is the date that, we were informed, will live in infamy. While in college I heard the words from President Roosevelt on December 8, 1941, and the world hasn’t been the same since that date as it was previously, even though some new factors slowly emerged during the war and the years following. I tend to put the dates of December 7 and 8 together. For the Japanese to launch an attack, the date was the eighth, but for the Americans, the seventh. In America it was the Lord’s Day – Monday in Asia.
On the American 7th, in the evening, I walked into Chapel Hall in the college I attended, now named Nyack College in Nyack, New York. I had been invited, with my girlfriend, Joanne Ries, to the home of the Herman Hazletts, for an evening supper. The Hazletts were missionaries on furlough from what was then French Indo-China (now Laos, Cambodia and Viet Nam and extended territories.) Herman was also a member of the home church for both Joanne and me. The Hazletts were a leading family in that church in Akron, Ohio. A firm Christian oriented family, the Hazlett’s gave several of its members to ministry.
As I walked into the chapel that divided the large Institute Hall with section south a women’s dorm and section north a men’s dorm, the radio program was interrupted with the stark announcement that Pearl Harbor in Hawaii had been attacked, that the damage was extensive, and that America was undoubtedly at war with Japan. I was stunned, and when Joanne walked into the chapel a few minutes later, I informed her of the announcement. We walked with a changed feeling in our spirits to the Hazlett home. I immediately asked if they had heard the announcement. They had not. They turned on the radio and we listened for a few minutes to the voice trying to give limited but factual information. Herman turned ashen and rushed out of the house. (I did not see him again until 29 years later.) He ran to the home of A. C. Snead, the Foreign Secretary of the Mission: The Christian and Missionary Alliance. Snead had not heard the news, but with Herman the two men began making calls and doing everything they could to make sure the mission suffered as little as possible for the international tragedy. Their first effort was to save the lives of missionaries. Snead knew that the attack would mean death to missionaries. By their quick response some missionaries were warned and were able to find safe haven. Some could not be reached, or were trapped in their geography. They lost their lives – some in brutal fashion. The stories seem beyond human imagination. One missionary, protected by the native people, gave himself up rather than permit them to be tortured to reveal his hiding area. He was killed with a sword cleaving his head from the top of the skull through bone and tissue. Remembrance of this brave and devout man continues to solemnize me more than seventy years since the horrible deed was done. It was matched by others, victims of the same crime specie. Some years later, my classmate, Bob Ziemer, was cut down by a volley of Viet Cong machine gun bullets while carrying a white flag to negotiate the rescue of his wife and other missionaries pinned down in the Vietnam War. Several others were killed. Sorrow, not despair, remains deep for us in their deaths.
What has this done for me, and for other persons who know the facts of that history? It has made me more convinced than ever of biblical concepts of sin and redemption, of war and peace, of evil and righteousness. Mankind follows warfare that is cruel, that kills, destroys families, and cultures, and changes the uses of the earth’s resources from nurturing life to destroying it. Warfare is large evidence that mankind needs God, and find fellowship with God. God is the friend of life, the enemy of death, but competent in managing all in peace. Can mankind follow the model of the Prince of Peace? A case might be made that Christians have not communicated sufficiently well that even when God acknowledges warfare as judgment there is no recourse – as seen in Israel and the Canaanites in conflict that gained the land for Israel under Joshua. Mankind is called to peace. Christ is identified as the Prince of Peace (not a title for leading military). Christians might well advance the meaning of peace and order by communicating both the conviction for peace, and programs that advance it in world society. It is likely that other devout men and women will lose their lives in advertising the Gospel of the Prince of Peace. Pray for peace. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020