'A day for remembrance': Local Marine vets commemorate Pearl Harbor

Dec. 7—GREENUP — Eighty-one years ago Wednesday, the Imperial Japanese Army launched a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, killing 2,403 Americans and destroying or damaging 19 ships.

The attack on Dec. 7, 1941, would reverberate throughout history. It would send a generation of young men, already hardened by the horrors of the Great Depression, into the deadliest and largest war in human history.

Nations were destroyed, millions were killed, families were broken. But at the end of that war — the first and only use of atomic weapons in wartime — the United States would stand as a world superpower, leading the Western World into an era of unparalleled prosperity.

On Wednesday, a group of old Marines — most who served during the Vietnam War — gathered at the Greenup County War Memorial to remember the lives lost that set off that course of history.

Gary Nichols, the Commandant of the Lt. Col. Vance Huston 1345 Detachment of the Marine Corps League, said the ceremony wasn't for the "pomp and circumstance" but to remember the Americans lost in that tragedy.

With few in attendance — just a handful of onlookers and the local paper — Nichols said it wasn't about the crowds.

"We didn't expect a big crowd on a Wednesday afternoon," he said. "But it's not about that. It's about remembering those who gave their lives to our nation."

As the Greatest Generation dwindles day by day — even the youngest who lied about their age to join would be in their 90s — Nichols said it's important to continue remembering what called a pivotal moment in world history.

Only one member of the Marine Corps League — established in Boyd and Greenup in 2010 — actually served in WWII, seeing combat on Sugar Loaf Hill during the battle of Okinawa, the bloody dress rehearsal for an invasion of mainland Japan that thankfully never happened.

That man, Jack Nickuls, wasn't able to get out to the ceremony on Wednesday.

"He's in his 90s, so he doesn't get out much," Nichols said.

Bob Lynn, who served in the Marine Corps from 1954 to 1962, said he's always joked with the elder Marine that when he served, they had to go to Okinawa to "clean up the mess you all made."

The ceremony started with a prayer, the National Anthem, then a flag-raising ceremony and a folding of the flag.

To honor the men lost on the ships in 81 years ago, the vets had a table set up as if it were a dinner a table for soldiers. To commemorate those lost on 11 of the larger ships sank in the attack, a rose was laid on the table.

Capping off the ceremony was a three-volley salute.

Roger Osborne, another member of the organization, said the importance of remembering the attack is to prevent history from repeating itself.

"You can't keep kicking it down the road, you have to know where you came from in order to know where you're going," he said. "The kids need to know about this."

(606) 326-2653 — henry@dailyindependent.com