In the midst of all this, Curt comes home on leave for a visit. He tells Mary Ellen he won't be able to get a pass to come home and attend her graduation ceremony. Further, he advises her that she must do well on her state exams so she can successfully compete with other nurses to join him in his duties. Mary Ellen decides to ask David for more pills and some sedatives, so she can use them to get through her state exams in two weeks.

Mary Ellen finishes studying the night before the exam, but discovers she has run out of sedatives. Unable to sleep, she drives to her husband's office hoping to find pills. Of course, she is found by the friend living in the adjoining house who calls one of her brothers. When they arrive back at the Walton home, Mary Ellen confesses to her mother and she goes through a rather painless withdraw from the pills in one night.

Mary Ellen takes the state exams and passes. Still unsure whether Curt will be there to see her graduate, Mary Ellen is overjoyed when he appears and is brought up on stage to place the nurse's cap on her head. Curt also announces he is being transferred to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii where his wife and son can join him soon.

In the words of narrator Earl Hamner: "On that day we were not only aware of Mary Ellen's victory in becoming a nurse, but also of a greater victory that she had won. We knew that she had found her strength again, and with it had come a bright re-discovery of freedom". A statement like that helps to explain the enduring popularity of The Waltons. Corny or not, the family loved each other, believed in each other and weathered every storm that came their way as a unit.

The family would need all the inner strength they could muster in "The Day of Infamy" episode. Though The Waltons had deaths in their family, they always seemed insulated from the outside world, protected from any real harm. December 7, 1941 started out as a normal Sunday on Walton's Mountain. The family was preparing an early Christmas for John Curtis and Mary Ellen before they departed to Curt in Pearl Harbor in a few days. That day, Pearl Harbor was attacked by the Japanese, thousands of Americans were killed, and the United States entered World War II. Among those killed was Curtis Willard.