Originally published in Utah Business.
I once visited the National Archives in Washington, D.C., with a group of Utah business leaders as guests of Sen. Orrin Hatch. I will never forget the experience. Serving as the senior U.S. senator gives you extraordinary access to the nation’s archival treasures.
At one table I saw the actual handwritten first inaugural of George Washington. It was breathtaking. In it Washington declares, “I was summoned by my country, whose voice I can never hear but with veneration and love.” This was a man who understood love of country.
What I saw and heard at another table has also stuck with me over the years. That table had the actual handwritten radar readings from Pearl Harbor. In the center of the two-foot by three-foot document (it looked like a white poster with polygons in the middle) was the island of Oahu. Drawn in increments of time were lines depicting the incoming squadrons of Japanese aircraft. Those of you familiar with our history will not be surprised to learn the lines stopped about an inch away from Oahu as the radar technicians were called off and told “Don’t worry about it.” A first lieutenant with the Army Air Forces mistakenly assumed the incoming aircraft were a flight of U.S. B-17 bombers expected from the mainland.
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