77th Anniversary of Pearl Harbor

[47of74]

This year's ceremony at Pearl Harbor was different than all the previous ceremonies.

Quote

This year, the Pearl Harbor Commemoration Ceremony at the USS Arizona in Hawaii will be different from any other before. For the first time, there will be no survivors of Pearl Harbor attending the ceremony. The handful that survived the battleship bombing on this day, in 1941, are now all in their nineties. Last year, 3 of the 5 remaining members of the USS Arizona were able to attend but this year, they aren't able to make it because of health issues.

Historians and everyday Americans worry that we may start to lose a human connection with the attack because of their absence. One of the survivors on the USS Arizona says Americans should focus on the soldiers who lost their lives on that day.

At the rate the WW II vets are dying it won't be too long until we lose that human connection to the war.

[Briefly]

1 minute ago, 47of74 said:

This year's ceremony at Pearl Harbor was different than all the previous ceremonies.

At the rate the WW II vets are dying it won't be too long until we lose that human connection to the war.

There is at least one Pearl Harbor survivor in the Tulsa area.  He is interviewed on the news every year, today he was talking about his experiences and I realized that he is in a very small group now.

I know it's normal, time goes on, people die.  But because my dad was a WWII vet (D-Day, Omaha Beach), I am more aware of how many of them we are losing that a lot of people seem to be. It is normal, but it still is sad.

[47of74]

13 minutes ago, Briefly said:

There is at least one Pearl Harbor survivor in the Tulsa area.  He is interviewed on the news every year, today he was talking about his experiences and I realized that he is in a very small group now.

I know it's normal, time goes on, people die.  But because my dad was a WWII vet (D-Day, Omaha Beach), I am more aware of how many of them we are losing that a lot of people seem to be. It is normal, but it still is sad.

My Grandpa who passed in 2013 was a WW II vet so I had known for years that a lot of WW II vets were dying for a while now and the number of vets was shrinking rapidly.  All the people who served in WW II in my family are gone now. 

[Don'tlikekoolaid]

Maybe we can keep them alive in memory if we teach future generations to never forget.  I like how all the WWII movies are shown on TV on important anniversaries.

[ADoyle90815]

In my family, the last WWII vet who died was my great uncle who died a few years after my grandpa died.