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What I Saw Aboard the USS Arizona on December 7, 1941


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Pearl Harbor survivor: What I saw aboard the USS Arizona on December 7, 1941

by Donald Stratton  :salute:

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I was aboard the USS Arizona on the morning of December 7, 1941. The courage I saw in our men was astonishing.

Those gallant sailors fought back however they could. Pilots tried to locate airplanes that were still operable, but only a few managed to get in the air and into the fight.

Gunners found themselves with only the ammunition in their ready boxes, with the rest of the munitions they so desperately needed locked up belowdecks.

 
What happened on December 7, 1941, if it didn’t kill us, changed us forever. President Roosevelt was right to call it “a date that will live in infamy.” But for my fellow survivors and me, it also is alive in memory, like shrapnel left embedded in our brains because the surgeon thought it too dangerous to operate. These memories lie within me, forever still and silent, like the men entombed in the Arizona.

If the bullets ran out, they raced to another gun, often one that had a fallen sailor crumpled beneath it.

The rest of the men fought back with whatever weapons were at hand, shooting at the streaking Japanese Zeros with lightweight machine guns, rifles, even pistols.

Acts of individual heroism could be witnessed everywhere you looked. Men being strafed as they brought boxes of ammo up ladders to the antiaircraft guns. Other men carrying their wounded buddies to safety, trying desperately to stanch their bleeding. Still others in small boats, navigating through the fiery sea, pulling oil-soaked sailors from the water. Many putting out fires on board their ships. All the while these men were dodging enemy bullets that were cutting everything around them to shreds, including their fellow sailors.

We were not extraordinary men, those of us who fought on that infamous date in December seventy-five years ago.

Truth be told, most of us had enlisted because there were precious few jobs to be found where we lived. The Great Depression had pulled the pockets of the economy inside out, leaving little more than a lint’s worth of hope for the young men entering the workforce. Most of us who enlisted did so because we needed a job.

Pearl Harbor changed that. A surge of patriotism swept the country, and everyone threw themselves into the war effort.

Love for country welled up inside seemingly every American, coming out in the songs we sang, in the movies produced, in the newspaper articles that were written.

We were ordinary men. What was extraordinary was the country we loved. We loved who she was, what she stood for. We loved her for what she meant to us, and for what she had given to us, even in those meager times.

It didn’t matter where you hailed from, whether you came from the mountains or the prairies, a sprawling city or a small coastal town: you loved her.

We all did—more than the states we left behind, our homes, the careers we gave up. As too many would prove, we loved her more than our very lives.

Read more... http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2016/12/06/pearl-harbor-survivor-what-saw-aboard-uss-arizona-on-december-7-1941.html

 

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4 hours ago, ladyGrace'sDaddy said:

This really touched my heart WHN,  God bless you for bringing it and God bless the men and women who serve our great nation.

Thank you LGD.  They weren't called the Greatest Generation for nothing. :)

 

President Elect Donald Trump Statement On 75th Anniversary of Pearl Harbor…

Posted on December 7, 2016 by sundance

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We pause today to remember the 2,403 American heroes who selflessly gave their lives at Pearl Harbor 75 years ago, on a date that will forever live in infamy. We also honor the 1,178 Americans who were wounded, and the countless others who instinctively did their duty, rushing to their posts in the midst of the chaos.

Their shared sacrifice reminds us of the great costs paid by those who came before us to secure the liberties we enjoy, and inspires us to rise to meet the new challenges that stand before us today.

America’s enemies have changed over the past 75 years. But the fact remains, as President Reagan said when first proclaiming National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, ‘there can be no substitute for victory’ in the pursuit of peace.

Today we are the bearers of the torch of freedom these brave Americans passed on to us. In honor of their faithfulness, and for the sake of generations to come, we will never allow that flame to be extinguished.  ~ President Elect Donald J Trump

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I think yesterday was a very special moment for all of us. To see those veterans talk about that day is something every parent should make their kids watch and understand what it means to each and everyone of us.

Cheers to President Elect Trump for his statement and love of our veterans...

Well except for John McCain...

 

Trump attacks McCain: 'I like people who weren't captured'

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/trump-attacks-mccain-i-like-people-who-werent-captured-120317

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