From Bataan and Corregidor to Guadalcanal and Iwo Jima, to Okinawa and the doorsteps of the Japanese mainland, the fight for survival in the Pacific theater of World War II was a desperate slog through a hell worse than anything imagined by Dante or the Marquis de Sade.

What began on Dec. 7, 1941, with the attack on Pearl Harbor ended 60 years ago today.

V-J Day, Aug. 15, marks the end of World War II. While the military victory is rightly celebrated, the day really belongs to the men and women who answered the call of their country and went to war.

More than 16 million Americans served in the armed forces during the war. More than 400,000 gave their lives. An estimated 1,000 World War II veterans are now dying every day. As their numbers dwindle, opportunities to recognize their service and sacrifice are lost.

The fighting in the Pacific was brutal on a grand scale. The attack on Pearl Harbor ignited hatred and a seething search for revenge that was absent from much of the European theater. It became a race war.

Japanese-Americans, guilty of no crime and without due process, were imprisoned as punishment for their heritage. The sins of the Japanese military were assigned to the entire population. According to political scientist Stephen Shalom, throughout the war, between 10 and 13 percent of Americans supported the extermination of the Japanese as a people.

The hatred was not limited to one side. The Japanese military was guilty of carnage against indigenous populations and POWs on a horrific scale. Koreans, Chinese, Filipino and Americans, among a host of others, were the victims of sadistic violence and mass murder. Their humanity was denied as they were starved, beaten, beheaded and gassed. During the U.S. invasion of Okinawa, the Japanese military’s grim fables about U.S. Marines prompted countless civilians to commit suicide rather than face occupation.

Through it all – the beach landings, forced marches, dogfights over the ocean, kamikaze attacks, disease and death – the U.S. soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines stayed true to their comrades and their country.

Most amazingly, when the fighting stopped, it was the same men and women – those who had faced the darkest of days – who rallied to rebuild the world, including their vanquished enemies.

Sixty years ago today, World War II ended. The greatest armed struggle in history was over, the victory secured by the efforts and determination of millions who fought and riveted and recycled and farmed and suffered as one nation.