Danette Goulet -- Editor’s Notebook

As I drove down Pacific Coast Highway at 7:30 a.m. Tuesday, headed for

the dentist, I barely saw the road.

In my mind’s eye, I saw a weathered face. Its owner wore a navy blue

Hawaiian print shirt and a white barracks cap with gold trim and adorned

with small ornate pins atop sparse white hair.

“Vigilance always,” he said.

Although I couldn’t recall his voice, the words and face were that of

Louis W. Nockold, a retired U.S. Navy commander who was a 19-year-old

sailor aboard a light cruiser in Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

I heard those words over and over in my mind, much like the Pearl

Harbor Survivors Assn.’s mantra: “Remember Pearl Harbor -- Keep America

Alert.” Nockold had come into the Daily Pilot office where I used to

work, to review the movie Pearl Harbor. As is my habit with veterans, I

stopped to talk to him.

I asked for a sneak preview of his opinions, which led us naturally

into a discussion of that day and the indelible marks it left upon him.

Our government, he told me, is letting down its guard. They are

closing military stations and falling into a mind-set that we are

invincible. We must not let that happen, he told me.

“Vigilance always,” he’d said.

We didn’t listen, I thought. Our enemy knows us well. We wouldn’t

watch closely for an attack from within -- not on domestic flights.

As I watched in stunned silence the rest of the day and the days that

have followed with the rest of America and the world, that is what has

stayed with me.

There have been many discussions and debates that have followed. The

primary one around here has been about patriotism. When I heard some

immediate reactions of “It’s our own fault” the patriot in me was aghast.

I don’t ask anyone to think our country is perfect or even tout it to

the world. But when times are tough, when we are challenged, we must

stand back to back and not be at odds within our own country. It is time

to set squabbles and disagreements aside and trust in our country’s

government and leaders. Perhaps they are not the ones you would have

chosen -- the ones you voted for -- but they are the only ones we have to

rely on right now.

So, I am moved as I drive through Huntington. Everywhere you go flags

are flying where there were none before. Residents, mostly children and

teenagers, wave flags, hold candles and signs that read “Honk if you love

America.”

This is not arrogance -- it is patriotism.

* DANETTE GOULET is the assistant city editor. She can be reached at

(714) 965-7170 or by e-mail at o7 danette.goulet@latimes.comf7 .