The Last Time

We Salute Them

with

A  L  O  H  A  !

They are in their late 80s & their 90s.

Active duty military personnel

smartly push their wheel chairs

past the emotional crowd.

Around 100 of them returned yesterday;

The cremated ashes of one man

were brought to Pearl Harbor 

for the last time

to be entombed

in the sunken USS UTAH with his

never forgotten ship-mates,

who died aboard her,

on that day 70 years ago-

yesterday.

"They want to return and be

with the shipmates that they lost 

during the attack,"

  Jim Taylor, 

a retired sailor

who coordinates such ceremonies

No one knows

if any of them will return

next December.

Fewer and fewer

survive each passing month.

Though around 2600 of them

still survive,

they are dissolving their organization

with the dying year.

It has become just too much

paperwork for them.

But their

precious documents

are being given into the care

of the US Parks Service.

In order to join the

Pearl Harbor Survivors Association,

each of them wrote an application

detailing WHERE they were on that day,

 what they SAW & DID.

Each year a few of them
tell the rest of us about that day:
fallen commrades,
the smell of burning oil,
 flaming water all around,
and the screams.

They fought war that followed;

But it is their faces,

and yes, their 

tears

that tell us
the most.

"Freedom
is not free."

" Yesterday, December 7, 1941—a date which will live in infamy—the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.... I, therefore, ask that the Congress declare that since the dastardly and unprovoked attack by Japan on Sunday, December seventh, 

a state of war has existed between the United States

and the Japanese Empire. "

 

  President Franklin D. Roosevelt,

request to Congress for a declaration of war, Dec 8, 1941-

One of the most famous radio broadcasts in history.

 listen HERE

" Before we're through with them,

the Japanese language will be spoken

only in Hell. "

--Vice Admiral William F. "Bull" Halsey,

spoken from his flagship Enterprise

upon returning to Pearl Harbor 

and seeing the smoking wreckage

 The lives of our Hawaii residents

of Japanese decent

were forever changed

from that day.

Some were interned,

some fought in the most decorated units

of the US Military.

Read about my extraordinary neighbors:

HERE

HERE

HERE

Thank YOU for visiting today! 

Your comment is most welcome-

                                                                                                 Warmly, cloudia