For Pearl Harbor survivor, lesson of attacks is `be alert'

A 20-year-old U.S. Navy patrol squadron seaman at the time, Brady remembered the airplanes burning all around him as smoke billowed from the ocean, where water and oil sizzled. But the Palmdale veteran also remembered something else.

Even as he skimmed the water from a seaplane in search of more survivors, he recalled the faith of the men he had rescued: "If you get me ashore," many assured him, "you've got a bottle (of liquor) coming."

He told the students he held a similar conviction Sept. 11 that America would prevail in the war it had not yet entered.

"I had faith," Brady told students in the eighth-grade science class. "That's what it's like to be an American. We all hoped and prayed we would win the war and we did."

A year after the Sept. 11 attacks, Brady, now 81, said his belief that the United States would win out against terrorism held just as steady.

"President Bush told us about the evil axis and what that means to the people in the world today," he told the class. "In those days we had the same type of people - Hitler, Mussolini, and in the Far East, General Tojo." Brady assured students America was in a stronger position to defeat terrorism today.

Last year, as Brady watched the television set with the rest of America and saw terrorism play out in flames across his screen, he said he didn't realize America was under assault. He had only just awakened after a panicked call from his daughter in Kansas: "Turn on the TV. Get to the TV."

Once he understood that America had been attacked, Brady said, "I remember how it felt. (Sept. 11) was the most disastrous day this country as ever known. The United States must learn the same lesson it did more than 60 years ago. Be alert. Be prepared."

Eighth-grader Alex Hutchison said learning about Pearl Harbor gave him "more perspective" on Sept. 11. "On Sept. 11, the whole world stopped, and hearing about Pearl Harbor gave me more confidence that we're more prepared now."

Another student, Josh Valverde, said he now realized "every attack to hurt our country has just made us stronger."

During the past year, student Jessica Thomas gained more confidence in America after she saw "how fast America could come together to help those who lost loved ones."

Science teacher Jennifer Husley said she, too, has seen a change - in the faces of her students as well as those she sees on television. "I was watching these people hurting, all that grief on their faces (after the attack), but now we're not hurting so much any more."

As grief gives way to lessons learned, Bill Brady said he has also learned what it means to again be among the lucky ones.

More than 60 years ago, stationed on Ford Island, Brady, a 20year-old kid who had finished kitchen duty early that morning, went to play baseball. He was not among the victims on the USS Arizona, which he had planned to visit. "Something happened and we didn't go," he said.

Uploaded September 12, 2002