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 .
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