Today marks the 75th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Hawaiian military base that brought our nation into World War II. President Roosevelt called December 7, 1941, “a date which will live in infamy,” and over the last three-quarters of a century few dates have been more infamous.

The nation of men and women who lived through and served in World War II has been, of course, disappearing over the past generation or more. I mean this literally and figuratively. Tom Brokaw called them “the Greatest Generation,” and I have no reason to disagree. It was my honor to know some of these men and women in my younger days, though in 2016 it is becoming more and more difficult to meet them.

We’ll set politics and football aside for a moment today to thank the World War II generation for their contributions not only to this nation but to the world at large, which was faced with tyranny and unspeakable ugliness in 1941. That brave generation of Americans 75 years ago rolled back that ugliness in the most costly of ways. They were a people dedicated to domestic peace and human dignity, and carried those ideals with them across the globe. All gave some, some gave all, and for that we are truly blessed today.