More than half a century after Americans learned of a Sunday morning attack on an American naval base at Pearl Harbor - an attack that would draw our nation into a conflict raging on continents far away - this Sunday, Dec. 7, finds Americans again at war in a distant country, in a fight spurred by an attack on American territory.

Prior to Pearl Harbor, there was resistance to the idea of this nation becoming involved what was a conflict of other countries. Some held to the belief that we should remain isolated from this fight.

When the Japanese Imperial Navy attacked Pearl Harbor, killing more than 2,000 members of the military and wounding more than 1,000 more, few people would have argued against involvement. With the current conflict, the timeline differed. After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, there were few who would have argued we should not combat terrorism.

The campaign in Afghanistan followed that attack, and later on, resulted in the United States going against and eventually deposing Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

The action in Iraq drew criticism and is likely to continue to, until the 2004 election and beyond. There are issues worthy of debate and those should be debated any time our government sends our citizens into a war zone. But Pearl Harbor and the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks against the United States from forces we were not at war with stand as proof that the United States cannot remain isolated from all the conflicts of other nations, not unless other nations choose to isolate us from their fights.

"Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory and our interests are in grave danger," Franklin Delano Roosevelt said told Congress after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

The messengers, the methods and the motives are different now.

But hostilities still exist, and there will continue to be situations across the seas from which the United States cannot and should not isolate itself.

Which situations warrant U.S. involvement will continue to be debated, as they should be in a free nation.

Our leaders should always strive to make decisions that are wise and right about which conflicts to commit troops to.

Becoming involved in a war that ended with the end of Hitler's regime and waging a war that ended a dictator's reign in Iraq were right.

Our hope today is that our nation's leaders now can find a wise resolution to bring soldiers home.