In the many depictions of Pearl Harbor, you usually see the footage of Hickam Field and the scores of Army Air Corps planes, parked in neat rows to guard against sabotage, lying in smoking ruin after being strafed and bombed by the Japanese forces. I think the saddest words I’ve ever heard are – “They never got off the ground”.

   We have in our country millions of lives, mostly young people, who for one reason or another, simply have never become airborne. They’ve never taken the knowledge given them and the gifts they were born with and ” slipped the surly bonds of earth and danced the skies on laughter silvered wings”

   This is not another Pearl Harbor story or an essay on the joys of aviation. It’s not a twelve step plan for restoring prosperity to the country, you can find those in other shops.

   This is a Dirge. An expression of the sorrow, pity, and grief that floods my heart to see row after row of ruined wrecks of what should be soaring lives.

   They never even got off the ground.