Their courage is not forgotten.

Eighty-two years ago today, when he was ten years old, my father, Ben, found himself in an arduous situation. For an hour, he and his classmates at San Juan de Letran College in Manila had been in the school’s chapel during Holy Mass for the Immaculate Conception—and he was starving. From the pulpit, however, Father Alejandro was going on and on about Japan’s sneak attack on Pearl Harbor and the “imminent” war between the Philippines and Japan. Big word, "imminent.” Did this mean that fighting would soon be raging in the Philippines?

Bobby, the crewcutted boy sitting next to Ben, sidled closer. “Hoy, Benny, think we’ll die?” he asked. Ben rolled his eyes. See, a question like that was proof that Bobby was a gago and a clown. Why, of all his classmates, did it have to be Bobby sitting next to him? Truth be told, however, Ben himself wondered how he would make out if war came to the country. He would like to turn eleven; his birthday was in only six days....

The harrowing years following the “day that shall live in infamy”—December 7, 1941—saw young Ben and his family battling, and trying desperately to survive, the ordeals of war. In the final chapter of “Boy of the Pearl,” Ben gives a touching tribute to the thousands of men and women—beginning with those at Pearl Harbor—who fought against the evils during the Second World War. May their courage never be forgotten. May the utterance of the freedom for which they sacrificed so much never be silenced. “To them we have a solemn obligation—the obligation to ensure that their sacrifice will help to make this a better and safer world in which to live.” –Admiral Chester W. Nimitz; Commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet; September 2, 1945