A wide view of Pearl Harbor during the Japanese attack on December 7, 1941, with American anti-aircraft shells bursting overhead. 

On this day 80 years ago, 2,403 Americans were killed and 1,178 wounded during the Japanese military’s sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. President Franklin D. Roosevelt called December 7, 1941, “a date which will live in infamy” while declaring war against Japan the next day. Three days later, on December 11, 1941, the United States declared war on Nazi Germany and would help liberate millions of innocent people during World War II.

80 years later, approximately 240,000 out of 16 million American heroes who served during World War II are still alive, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. All of this defining conflict’s veterans — living and departed — are national treasures. On this National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, we thank all the valiant veterans and fallen heroes who saved the world.

Let us close with a passage from President Ronald Reagan’s Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day proclamation in 1987.

“On December 7, America remembers much and resolves much. We remember Pearl Harbor’s dead and wounded and its courageous survivors who fought that day and many other days as well. We remember too one of history’s clearest lessons, that weakness and unpreparedness do not build peace but invite aggression. We remember that our freedom, purchased at so dear a price, can be taken from us. And we resolve that that shall never be. We resolve that our strength, our vigilance, and our devotion will forever keep America the land of the free and the home of the brave. We resolve that we will keep faith with those we have loved and lost. And we resolve that, always, we will remember Pearl Harbor.”