One of the highlights of my professional fund raising career was a luncheon I helped organize in honor of General Jimmy Doolittle. It was held near Los Angeles International Airport and benefitted the Westchester YMCA.

After the room was filled, largely with aerospace executives come to honor their hero, the band struck up Ruffles and Flourishes and General Doolittle entered, walking down the center aisle. Everyone jumped to their feet, as is the honor accorded to Congressional Medal of Honor recipients, and everyone began applauding.

They all had tears in their eyes and no one would stop applauding. These were grown men who were either members of what we now think of as the greatest generation, or they had been little boys who, during World War II, made model airplanes out of wood sticks and dreamed of being like Jimmy Doolittle.

But the General was humble about his courage and the honors it had prompted, and I suspect that, for that reason, he would be mad as hell about the movie Pearl Harbor.

Like every Congressional Medal of Honor recipient, Doolittle would understand the valor, courage and pain that the men and women suffered on December 7, 1941. He would be offended that the producers of an otherwise meaningful film had to add his story to, in some way, complete the tale. As if the tragedy and the heroism of that day had not been enough!

I am not a member of the greatest generation, but I can tell you where I was on December 7, 1941 when I heard about Pearl Harbor. And I'll bet that most people who were my age --- seven years old --- can also tell you where they were. I was in my grandparent's living room sitting on the couch with my father, listening to one of those Philco radios that stood on the floor.

My mother was still in the hospital after having given birth to my sister a week earlier. In those days, new mothers stayed in the hospital for at least a week. At least my mother did. But then again, you had to know my mother.

December 7, 1941 was the most important day of the twentieth century. Life changed for everyone that day, even a seven year old, and it has never been the same.

I was pleased to see that the film captured our innocence before December 7 and that it showed the attitudes of both the Japanese and American military leaders before the attack.

The battle scenes were spectacular and the telling of the horror, pain and suffering were gripping and realistic. I thought the "follow the bomb" gimmick was Pac Man silly, but that's my opinion.

To their credit, the movie makers showed a degree of pain and loss seldom seen in earlier tellings of American war stories. They also did a commendable job of showing the reality of African American men in the military services of those days.

But is the attention span of today's typical movie goer so short that every film must be loaded with hokey love plots and heros that rival Indiana Jones? Does it do justice to the truth or even to the dramatic arc of the movie, that one man served in the Eagle Squadron in England in 1940 where he was shot down and hidden by French resistance workers, then goes to Pearl Harbor where he shoots down seven planes, and then flies with Doolittle over Tokyo, crash landing in China, where he shoots a dozen Japanese soldiers and is returned to American soil within weeks or months. Even Doolittle wasn't that good!

Ten years ago, on the fiftieth anniversary of Pearl Harbor, my daughter and I were watching an observance on television when she turned to me and said, "Dad, what was Pearl Harbor?" It was one of those special moments when parents realize that their kids have finally come to think of them as fellow adults. I tried to tell her about it.

Now married and the mother of two, she can rest assured that her children will know what Pearl Harbor was about. It was about a woman who fell in love with two men who were close friends and one died so she married the other one and they raised the child she had with the first one --- or was it the other way around?

The men and women who sacrificed in World War II deserve more than that. They saved our freedom and they are our Greatest Generation. Anything that diminishes their valor or their sacrifice diminishes us all.

About the author:

Gerald Plessner is a columnist for the Pasadena Star News and San Gabriel Valley Tribune. He would like to hear from you about where you were on December 7, 1941 when you heard about Pearl Harbor. Write to him at geraldplessner@accellence.com.