Column: For many alive during Pearl Harbor, the war years were the most momentous of our lives

There are 1.6 million Californians today who were alive when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor 80 years ago, pushing America into World War II.

“They gave us pitchforks and told us to go stand on the beach and defend it,” I remember him griping to worried Mom when he finally arrived home after sunup. “What was I supposed to do with a pitchfork?” We soon moved to Ojai and my parents bought a small orange ranch for $9,000. That’s what good property cost when only 7.5 million people lived in California.seized the swanky Ojai Valley Country Club to train battalions of Army infantry. Rifle-carting troops frequently marched by our ranch to a mountainside firing range. My brother and I handed out freshly picked oranges. Some soldiers happily took them. Others acted as if they’d never seen an orange.

The son of my parents’ close friends came home a heroic Marine lieutenant, found out his wife had been having an affair and killed himself. His two kids — my age — were raised by their grandparents. One attribute the war years always will be remembered for is the national unity they inspired. Everyone pulled together and sacrificed, committed to a common goal: victory over Hitler and Tojo. “Polarization” wasn’t in the vocabulary.

Coincidentally, a lifelong close friend of mine was living in Parker when Matsui was born because his father was working at the Poston camp as an inspector of camouflage netting made by the internees. His job was to make sure the camouflage didn’t contain signals for enemy aircraft.— moved with his family to Hemet. And his most profound memory of World War II was when Roosevelt died.

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