As this past Wednesday marked 75 years since the attack on Pearl Harbor, I've done some reflecting. I had the opportunity while I was in Hawaii a couple of summers back to visit the memorial as well as the aviation museum also located on the naval base. If you've ever been to a memorial for a time, event, or person you understand the impact it can have on you mentally. It's almost draining and you can feel the amount of loss. Memorials always tend to make me feel like that, but they also make me thankful for the times we live in now and I hope that nothing like the event ever happens again. Arguably, the United States is probably one of the safest countries to live in when it comes to war.

We have very few instances to document the effect that war has had on our country physically. By this I mean in which a war with another country has been responsible for attacks on our own cities, states, and country. In that case, we are fortunate, but in those few cases we can document, it still haunts us to this day all the same. Attacks in the United States tend to be still shell shocking at times because there's such a small amount of surprise attacks that when they happen, we could have never foretold them coming. It's no secret that the attack on Pearl Harbor is still probably one of the most successful surprise attacks to date in United States history today, next to 9/11. Hopefully, we can all agree wars are one of the most dull-witted ways of trying to obtain order within a country ever. The amount of money spent and the amount of lives lost is pretty much always non conducive to the final outcome of wars. That doesn't mean I don't appreciate the men and women that fight to protect our country everyday, putting their lives on the line, but I just wish that they didn't have to.

If you agree with me, the only way to promote peace is to start within: making peace with yourself, learning how to deal with life's many problems one at a time, finding positive solutions. How can we expect peace or want peace if we haven't found it within ourselves first? Wherever you are right now, take a minute to not only think about the lives lost on that tragic day, but everyday due to war, and ask yourself how can you promote world peace?

I shared this photo on my Facebook and Instagram that I took while at the aviation museum on the Pearl Harbor naval base. The empty window panels and bullet holes in the window panes are from that very day and haven't been replaced since.