“Where were you on the afternoon of December 7, 1941?” This question, posed by the narrator of “I Can Hear It Now,” introduces the cataclysmic event that took place 63 years ago this week.

Once more I have listened to one of the old LP recordings that recalls this history and brings it back excitingly. “We interrupt this program to bring you a special bulletin,” the voice announces, sharing with the American people the grim news of the Japanese attack on Pear Harbor.

We also hear President Franklin Roosevelt speak to a joint session of congress on December 8th as he brands the day of the attack “a date that will live in infamy.” At the same time, he boldly predicts: “We will gain the inevitable triumph, so help us God.”

In answer to the question at the top of this column, I must reply: “In my room, banished there for bad behavior.” Then a 13-year-old adolescent, I was being punished by my father for an offence long since forgotten.

To console myself, I had turned on the radio and thus was the first in my family to hear the fateful news. Immediately I bolted out of banishment, ran downstairs and breathlessly announced the Pearl Harbor events to my parents. In the emotion of the moment my misbehavior appeared petty and I was free, my punishment forgotten.

My father, a writer for the Boston Post, realized at once the implications of the surprise attack. It would bring us into a new era of history and change the lives of all Americans. Following his lead, the mood of other family members turned somber as we envisioned the effects on us of our country being at war.

Roosevelt’s confidence on the next day improved the morale of just about everyone. However, most of us did not realize the extent of the destruction that rained down on the American fleet. It took boldness on Roosevelt’s part to predict victory when American military preparedness was so feeble. Then, a few weeks later, when we took on the other major powers in the Axis –  – Germany and Italy –  –  the challenge became even more daunting.

My age exempted me from the military service into which so many fellow Americans were drafted or enlisted. In any event, I would never have been accepted for the armed forces because of a disability dating from my birth. Thus my experience of war would remain second-hand, gained through the media (though we did not then use this word).

Habitually I would read with rabid interest newspaper accounts of the fighting in both the Pacific theater and the European. In addition I saw movies that presented the enemy in almost exclusively negative images.

I still remember pilots of the Japanese Zero fighter planes, grinning as they shot down American defenders. And the deadly comic portrait of Hitler as portrayed by Charlie Chaplin in The Great Dictator made an indelible impression on me.

Like almost all other Americans, I was wholeheartedly supportive of the war effort. Long after that war had ended, I discovered that my friend, the scholar Gordon Zahn, and some few others had registered as conscientious objectors and were confined to a camp in New Hampshire. But they would have struck me as weird in opposing a war that seemed amply justified.

Only much later, as an adult, did I develop a political consciousness that prepared me to take a critical view of some actions of our national government. That shift in awareness ranks as one of the most significant developments in my interior life.

Living in international communities was a chief factor in bringing about this transformation. My year in Wales with colleagues from a variety of European countries made me see my own country in a different perspective. Even more did the following year in Belgium where I studied with people from Africa, South America and other places.

Entering into their worldview, I came to evaluate the actions of the United States government more critically. That shift in perspective would become most evident during the Vietnam War. Like so many others, I felt stricken by the tragic mistakes of our leaders in that agonizing time of struggle.

Tracing the physical events in one’s life usually does not present great difficulty. Recognizing the shifts in consciousness is much more difficult. Unless you have documented those shifts or can call on the observations of friends, recalling how your psyche has changed is a challenge.

My shifts in outlook from that nationally traumatic December 7th go far to make up the story of my life. Thanks to journals and other writings, I have been able to put together at least a fragmentary account of inner changes to accompany the ones that happened in full view.

To have been given enough length of days for giving expression to that story continues to gladden my heart.

Richard Griffin