‘How vulnerable we are’

James Meier

NEWPORT-MESA -- “Lest we forget.”

For survivors of the attack on Pearl Harbor nearly 60 years ago,

Tuesday’s attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and the

Pentagon echoed their sentiments that the U.S. cannot take its freedom

for granted.

“The thing that strikes me is that the Pearl Harbor survivors have

been stressing that we must remember Pearl Harbor,” said Louis W.

Nockhold, a retired Navy commander who was a 19-year-old sailor aboard a

light cruiser in Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. “We found out this morning

how vulnerable we can be.”

The Newport Coast resident reiterated the Pearl Harbor Survivors

Assn.’s motto, “Lest we forget,” and said the nation and its leaders have

obviously become complacent. As a result, they have let down their guard

by closing military bases over the last 10 years, a trend that President

Bush hasn’t reversed, he said.

“I know exactly how other Pearl Harbor survivors are feeling right now

about how we’ve been telling the country to be ready,” Nockhold

continued. “We’ve been concerned with dollars and cents instead of the

safety of the country. And we have seen this morning how vulnerable we

are.”

Jack Hammett, a retired Navy warrant officer who was stationed at the

Naval Hospital at Pearl Harbor during that attack, said although

Tuesday’s attacks didn’t immediately conjure Pearl Harbor images, it did,

like it did the nation, surprise him.

“It was [similar to Pearl Harbor] as far as being awakened by shock

that such a tragedy had occurred,” said Hammett, adding that the

television images rekindled thoughts in his wife’s memory Tuesday

morning. “She said ‘Here we go again.”’

Hammett, also a former Costa Mesa mayor and still a Costa Mesa

resident, said he thought Tuesday’s attack was much worse than that on

Pearl Harbor, which claimed 2,388 lives and injured 1,178 people.

“This upsets me more because we didn’t have any warning,” Hammett

said. “We had some warning at Pearl Harbor. There was general knowledge

that Japan was unhappy with us.

“This is a despicable act of terrorists against people,” he continued.

“Pearl Harbor was warriors versus warriors. These are, for the most part,

innocent civilians.”

Nockhold agreed.

“This is nonmilitary using the civilian people, all of them completely

innocent of any wrongdoing, to perpetrate an attack and killing thousands

more than were killed in Pearl Harbor,” Nockhold said, noting that those

who committed the act knew what they were doing. “It was extremely

well-planned.”

Much like Nockhold, Hammett, too, is disappointed that the nation has

become too comfortable.

“We are not on the alert,” he said. “Pearl Harbor put us on the alert,

but we have since let up.”

Hammett, also a D-Day veteran, added that “I’ve seen my share of

death. What I’m concerned about is the softening of America, the lack of

will.”

He stressed that these are not the end of terrorism attacks on the

U.S.

“We haven’t begun to see anything yet,” Hammett said. “This is a

success trophy, and we’ll probably start to see more of this. And now

we’re going to learn how to fight off terrorism.”

Both Nockhold and Hammett said the nation, as in World War II, must

retaliate as soon as someone claims responsibility or a thorough

investigation turns up a culprit.

Nonetheless, this catastrophic event, much like Pearl Harbor, will

again remind the nation that it must keep its guard up, both agreed.

“It’s going to at least get us back on track for a while,” he said. “I

hope we don’t lose track that this type of thing could happen. We’ve got

to protect ourselves. Freedom is wonderful, but we must see now that we

have to protect it.”