Pearl Harbor Day

[GAMike]

Not posting this to bash Japanese people.... Rather to remember the brave souls who both fought and lost their lives on this tragic day.... :flag:

We should never forget how this came to pass, who sacrificed, and why we have checks and balances in our government (that other govt's don't have... Some on purpose).

[fastblackmerc]

Remember Pearl Harbor!

Thanks to all, past, present and in the future who made sacrafices for all of us.

[DOOM]

:flag: :flag:

[rayjay]

:flag::flag:Thank you Desi Dutcher where ever you are. Desi was a Pearl Harbor survivor and fought through out the Pacific. May God Bless all our veterans. :flag::flag:

[Haggis]

Maytheir sacrifice not have been in vain. :flag:

[Mebot]

I read this article this morning in The Washington Post:
Pearl Harbor survivor helps identify sailors, Marines buried as unknowns after 1941 attack



http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/pearl-harbor-survivor-helps-identify-sailors-marines-buried-as-unknowns-after-1941-attack/2012/12/06/1aa12eec-3fe7-11e2-8a5c-473797be602c_story.html


HONOLULU — Ray Emory could not accept that more than one quarter of the 2,400 Americans who died at Pearl Harbor were buried, unidentified, in a volcanic crater. And so he set out to restore names to the dead.


Emory, a survivor of the attack, doggedly scoured decades-old documents to piece together who was who. He pushed, and sometimes badgered, the government into relabeling more than 300 gravestones with the ship names of the deceased. And he lobbied for forensic scientists to exhume the skeletons of those who might be identified.


On Friday, the 71-year anniversary of the Japanese attack, the Navy and National Park Service will honor the 91-year-old former sailor for his determination to have Pearl Harbor remembered, and remembered accurately.


“Some of the time, we suffered criticism from Ray and sometimes it was personally directed at me. And I think it was all for the better,” said National Park Service historian Daniel Martinez. “It made us rethink things. It wasn’t viewed by me as personal, but a reminder of how you need to sharpen your pencil when you recall these events and the people and what’s important.”


Emory first learned of the unknown graves more than 20 years ago when he visited the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific shortly before the 50th anniversary of the attack. The grounds foreman told him the Pearl Harbor dead were scattered around the veterans’ graveyard in a volcanic crater called Punchbowl after its resemblance to the serving dish.
Emory got a clipboard and walked along row after row of flat granite markers, making notes of any listing death around Dec. 7, 1941. He got ahold of the Navy’s burial records from archives in Washington and determined which ships the dead in each grave were from.


He wrote the government asking why the markers didn’t note ship names and asked them to change it.


“They politely told me to go you-know-where,” Emory told The Associated Press in an interview at his Honolulu home, where he keeps a “war room” packed with documents, charts and maps. Military and veterans policy called for changing grave markers only if remains are identified, an inscription is mistaken or a marker is damaged.


Emory appealed to the late Patsy Mink, a Hawaii congresswoman who inserted a provision in an appropriations bill requiring Veterans Affairs to include “USS Arizona” on gravestones of unknowns from that battleship.
Today, unknowns from other vessels like the USS Oklahoma and USS West Virginia, also have new markers.


Some of the dead, like those turned to ash, will likely never be identified. But Emory knew some could be.


The Navy’s 1941 burial records noted one body, burned and floating in the harbor, was found wearing shorts with the name “Livingston.” Only two men named Livingston were assigned to Pearl Harbor at the time, and one of the two was accounted for. Emory suspected the body was the other Livingston.


Government forensic scientists exhumed him. Dental records, a skeletal analysis and circumstantial evidence confirmed Emory’s suspicions. The remains belonged to Alfred Livingston, a 23-year-old fireman first class assigned to the USS Oklahoma.


Livingston’s nephew, Ken Livingston, said his uncle and his father were raised together by their grandmother and attended the same one-room schoolhouse. They grew up working on farms in and around Worthington, Ind. Livingston remembers his dad saying the brothers took turns wearing a pair of shoes they shared.


When the family learned Alfred was found, they brought him home from Hawaii to be buried in the same cemetery where his grandmother and mother rest.


About a third of the town showed up for his 2007 memorial service in Worthington, a town of just 1,400 about 80 miles southwest of Indianapolis. The local American Legion put up a sign welcoming home “Worthington’s missing son.”


“It brought a lot of closure,” said Ken Livingston, 62, his voice cracking.


John Lewis, a retired Navy captain who worked with Emory while assigned to the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command between 2001 and 2004, said the command is fortunate someone like Emory has the time and initiative to painstakingly connect the dots on the unknowns.


“Without Ray Emory I don’t know if this ever would have been done,” Lewis said from Flowood, Miss.


Emory says people sometimes ask him why he’s spending so much time on events from 70 years ago. He tells them to talk to the relatives to see if they want the unknowns identified.


He doesn’t get emotional about the work, except when the government doesn’t exhume people he thinks should be dug up and identified.
“I get more emotional when they don’t do something,” he said.


He’ll keep working after he’s formally recognized during the Pearl Harbor ceremony on Friday to remember and honor the dead. He has names of 100 more men buried at Punchbowl he believes are identifiable.


Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

[GAMike]

That is a great story Mebot! A committed citizen and war veteran asking his govt. to get off its azz and do its duty, like he and those who died.....

History more important than ever, yet it seems to be at the mercy of people who only look to the future.....

[Mebot]

That is a great story Mebot! A committed citizen and war veteran asking his govt. to get off its azz and do its duty, like he and those who died.....

History more important than ever, yet it seems to be at the mercy of people who only look to the future.....

Indeed it is! I especially love this part:

“Some of the time, we suffered criticism from Ray and sometimes it was personally directed at me. And I think it was all for the better,” said National Park Service historian Daniel Martinez.

as well as:

He wrote the government asking why the markers didn’t note ship names and asked them to change it.“They politely told me to go you-know-where,” Emory told The Associated Press in an interview


lulz :D

[Bigdogjim]

71 Years ago and we must keep the memory alive:flag:

Pearl is on my "bucket list" of places to visit. God Bless 'em all!

R.I.P. all that gave everything that dark Sunday morning.

[tbone]

Not posting this to bash Japanese people....

No need to preface it by saying this.

Remember Pearl Harbor.

[MMBLUE]

May God bless all who served :flag:

[jerrym3]

71 Years ago and we must keep the memory alive:flag:

Pearl is on my "bucket list" of places to visit. God Bless 'em all!

R.I.P. all that gave everything that dark Sunday morning.

I was fortunate to visit Pearl while on business in 1996. And, I took the tour early on a beautiful Sunday morning. Fitting.

Entering the monument and looking at the wall with all the names of the deceased............

Looking into the water and seeing the ship below...........

Looking at the markers noting the location of the bow and stern........

Seeing a few sections of the ship still above water............

The somberness of the tourists inside that monument...it was like being in a house of worship......

And, the biggest jolt, watching pools of oil (called "black pearls") still rising from the ship after all these years.........

Yes, put Pearl on your bucket list. Well worth it.

[gdsqdcr]

Remember Pearl Harbor and every American who has given their life protecting this country from foreign and domestic evils.

I will visit Pearl Harbor some day along with the site of the Twin Towers.

[guspech750]

What an amazing story.

Been to Pearl Harbor twice. It's so sombering, yet I couldn't stop wondering what was going through the minds of those listed on plaques. R.I.P.
Thank You to all service men and women.


Sent from my iPhone 4S

DTR + 4.10's + Eaton swap = Wreeeeeeeeeeeeeeedom

[Mebot]

my company is the worlds leading provider of satellite imagery. I hope the link below works. I'm copying it from my cell phone. it's a picture from last years 70th Anniversary of Pearl Harbor

http://www.geoeye.com/CorpSite/gallery/gallery-image.aspx?2092&g=18

Sent from my handheld Zack Morris iShoe 4S.

[sailsmen]

We made Japan into what it is today.

[ROCOB]

:flag:Never Forget:flag:

[pem]

Remember Pearl Harbor and every American who has given their life protecting this country from foreign and domestic evils.

I will visit Pearl Harbor some day along with the site of the Twin Towers.
add the Normandy beaches to your list, too

[tbone]

We made Japan into what it is today.

And most of the world.:beer:

[SC Cheesehead]

71 Years ago and we must keep the memory alive:flag:

Pearl is on my "bucket list" of places to visit. God Bless 'em all!

R.I.P. all that gave everything that dark Sunday morning.

Same here, BDJ, and yes, THANK YOU to all who made the ultimate sacrifice that day; and to each and every veteran who has served our country then and now.

[cruzer]

I had my 13th birthday on Nov 27, 1941. I was babysitting with a neighbor's 2 children on a beautiful Sunday morning, listening to a jazz band on radio station WWL in New Orleans. Suddenly an announcer interrupted the music and, without any opening statement, blurted out in a quivering voice "The Japanese have bombed Pearl Harbor and the Phillipines" then total silence. I grabbed the kids and ran home. I burst into the kitchen and, in my bewildered state , screamed " Mama, the Japs are bombing the pineapple islands". We all stayed up all night listening to the news---school was cancelled for Monday, and we stuck by the radio all day. Within months, I had 3 brothers in the service--Ben, a Chaplin's assistant was in the liberation of the Phillipines and Japan Occupational Army, Buckie , senior Medical student, finished his training and was in the Army--ended up in a M.A.S.H unit in Korea later. Cal, a history student, was drafted and fought with Patton from Bastogne to Leipzig, where his unit made first contact with the Russians. Ben and Cal were wounded, but came home O.K.

My son, Kevin, and I visited the USS Arizona Monument in 1970, on our way to New Zealand on vacation. I was very emotionally affected, but the impact on Kevin was amazing--we often talk about that today. We toured the island, were able to look down the valley the Japs used to line up on Battleship Row, we saw the hundreds of bullet holes in Schofield Barracks, and had an awesone view of Pearl Harbor from a lookout point North of the harbor.
These are 2 events burned into my memory--and I will NEVER FORGET the memories of the brave men who died that day--and all those since.
All of you folks with families, PLEASE be sure your children never let these memories be lost. And to you wonderful young folks, take the time to learn some of the details of that day. I will be attending a meeting of over 150 WWII veterans next Friday--I'm sure the stories will fill the air.

GOD BLESS OUR VETERANS, THE MEN AND WOMEN WHO NOW SERVE, AND ALL THOSE WHO FOLLOW. THANKS A very old man with many memories, Maury