"Are you telling me that we spent almost $4 trillion dollars, four goddamn trillion dollars on defense, and we're not prepared to defend our computers? You don't have a game plan? What the hell have we been doing for the last 12 years?" The President bellowed as loudly as anyone could remember. No one in the room answered. The President glared right through each of his senior aides.
"Damage Assessment Potential?" The President said abruptly as he forced a fork full of scrambled eggs into his mouth.
"The Federal Reserve and most Banking transactions come to a virtual standstill. Airlines grounded save for emergency opera- tions. Telephone communications running at 30% or less of capacity. No Federal payments for weeks. Do you want me to continue?"
"No, I get the picture."
The President wished to God he wouldn't be remembered as the President who allowed the United States of America to slip back- ward 50 years. He waited for the steam in his collar to subside before saying anything he might regret.
* * * * *
Monday, August 6, 1945.
Japan
The classroom was coming to order. Shinzo Ito, the 12th graders' instructor was running a few minutes late and the students were in a fervent discussion about the impending end to the war. And of course it was to be a Japanese victory over the American Mongrels.
Ito-san was only 19 years old, and most of the senior class was only a year or two younger than he. The war had deeply affected all of them. The children of Japan were well acquainted with suffering and pain as families were wrenched apart - literally at the seams, and expected to hold themselves together by the honor that their sacrifices represented. They hardened, out of neces- sity, in order to survive and make it through the next day, the next week; and so they knew much about the war. Since so many of the men had gone to war, women and children ran the country. 10 and 11 year old students from the schools worked as phone opera- tors. It was an honorable cause, and everyone contributed; it was only fitting. Their fathers and loved ones were fighting self- lessly and winning the war.
Many of the children's fathers had gone to war, valiantly, and many had not come home. Many came home in pieces, many others, unrecognizable. And when some fathers had gone off to war, both they and their families knew that would never return. They were making the Supreme Sacrifice for their country, and more impor- tantly, a contribution to their honorable way of life.