National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Ceremony

Seventy-six years ago, the United States was suddenly and deliberately attacked by Japan at Pearl Harbor. Today, the attack was remembered all across the country.
“December 7th, 1941: a date which will live in infamy.” Seventy-six years later, people across the country still take time to remember that day when hundreds of Japanese fighter planes attacked American troops at the naval base at Pearl Harbor. For survivors like Marvin Westcott, no length of time can dull the memories of that attack on Pearl Harbor. “I was assigned to a destroyer outside of San Pedro and our home port was Pearl Harbor so we shipped off to Pearl Harbor. The funny thing about a day out at Pearl, I got this pleasant odor and I wondered what it was so I asked some of my shipmates and they said that’s the land.”
Marvin’s ship, the USS Balch, returned to the harbor early on the morning of December 7th. He says that seeing the battleships turned over and on fire and all the bodies in the water is a sight that is burned into his memory forever. “I consider it more than a surprise attack. It was a sneak attack and it’s very hard to forget because the morning that we left Pearl, the headlines of the newspaper was impregnable Pearl Harbor. Imagine that.”
It is the twenty American naval vessels that were destroyed and more than 3,600 American military men and women that lost their lives or were wounded that draws service members back all these years later to pay their respects. Armed Forces Retirement Home Admission Officer Lisa Hull said, “They are difficult memories, but they shaped history. I think it is important to remember the past and honor the past and one of the things that was so significant to me is that my grandfather is a Pearl Harbor survivor. He has been on my mind a lot lately so to be able to honor our residents here, I was also honoring him.”