Sixty-two years is a lifetime ago, but this anniversary marks our entry into the second ---- and hopefully final ---- world war we will ever know.

The Japanese caught us snoozing in Pearl Harbor. Four years later, two nuclear bombs we unleashed on two cities in Japan brought a decisive end to the war and raised the ante in the deadliest game of poker known to man. The sleeping giant walks softly and carries a big stick that unleashes the furies of hell.

Pondering this day in history from the comfort of my Temecula home, I try to understand how that conflict has left an indelible impression on the fabric of America. We never wanted to get caught with our pants down again. Our nation invested a fortune in surveillance equipment, from spy planes to satellite technology, but we became lax to our vulnerability from distant lands.

Once again, we ignored a visible, rising threat to the security of our nation and history repeated itself on Sept. 11, 2001. We are fighting a different battle today and while we have become more proficient at conventional warfare, our military strategists are having to adapt to the unconventional tactics of an elusive enemy.

In 1941, it was easy to see who the enemy was. They had big red suns on their planes that came from Japanese aircraft carriers. The United States brought about their surrender, helped them to rebuild, and now we drive Japanese cars to our homes filled with Japanese audio and video equipment. Sometimes it's hard to remember who won that war.

Today we find ourselves fighting in Iraq to strike back against a majority of Saudi terrorists, who trained in Afghanistan. I must be part of the dumbed-down America, because I'm having real trouble following the connections back to Sept. 11.

There is abundant irony to the fact that the best way to fight against the current enemy, who is financed through our dependence on foreign oil, is to buy the Japanese hybrid cars manufactured by Honda and Toyota. Meanwhile, stubborn and compulsively consumptive Americans insist on driving those behemoth testimonials to inefficiency known as the sport utility vehicle.

America has always been strong. Anybody who ever laid a glove on us was left knocked down and bleeding. We never hit first, until recently.

This country is not as vulnerable as it was in 1941, but in other ways we have become more open to threats from abroad. Back then, we walked softly and carried a big stick. Now that we hold the biggest stick on the planet, we swing it too readily and it loses its effectiveness.

Much has changed since a bold Japanese military mission wiped out a good deal of the Pacific Fleet, but it is amazing how little has been learned from our history.

It was only after devastating Japan that we helped them to build to become a prosperous nation. Imagine if we took out the middleman of war and instead of spending billions to kill, we invested mere millions to help people to live.

Ah, that's enough eggnog for me, after one last toast ---- to the brave souls of the Pacific Fleet.

Paul Jacobs of Temecula is a regular columnist for The Californian: E-mail: TemeculaPaul@aol.com