The last organized Pearl Harbor visit.

[aceplace57]

The Pearl Harbor veterans hung tough for seventy years. They are old and tired. The youngest are 88 and many are in their nineties.

This may be the last big gathering of the veterans at Pearl Harbor. The national organization is disbanding.

I’d like to say thank you one last time for their sacrifice and service to our country.

PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii – Under calm skies 70 years to the day of the attack on Pearl Harbor, about 120 survivors gathered Wednesday to mark the anniversary with ceremonies that began with a moment of silence for the 2,400 Americans who lost their lives.

And towards the end, it came with an announcement that seemed inevitable: The Pearl Harbor Survivors Association will disband on Dec. 31.

http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/07/9277516-at-70th-anniversary-pearl-harbor-survivors-group-prepares-to-disband

Some of the veterans are returning to their ship for burial.
http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/06/9254660-after-death-pearl-harbor-survivor-returns-to-his-ship

HONOLULU – Lee Soucy decided five years ago that when he died he wanted to join his shipmates killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Soucy lived to be 90, passing away just last year. On Tuesday, seven decades after dozens of fellow sailors were killed when the USS Utah sank on Dec. 7, 1941, a Navy diver will take a small urn containing his ashes and place it in a porthole of the ship.

[Bri2k]

“May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.”

I always feel a bit melancholy on Pearl Harbor Day, but news like this only compounds it.

Bri2k