From the September 11, 2020, AZCentral "The COVID-19 pandemic is not this generation's 9/11" by E.J. Montini.
On December 7, 2001, E.J. Montini went to the 60th anniversary of Pearl Harbor held each year at the USS Arizona Anchor Memorial at the Arizona State Capitol where he saw a group of elderly gentlemen, some in suits, some in casual Hawaiian shirts, but all of them wearing blue and white garrison caps with a "Pearl Harbor Survivor's" insignia on one side. They'd be sitting in a reserved seating area.
After the ceremony, he struck up a conversation with one of them, thanking him for his service. He then related the tale of how his father was 20-years-old on December 7, 1941, and enlisted soon afterward. His father was working at a steel mill at the time and crazy for a 17-year-old waitress at a place called the State Soda Grill.
They'd get married shortly before he shipped off to Europe with the Army.
I told the old vet that my parents recalled hearing President Franklin Roosevelt on the radio saying that that day would "live in infamy." And, how all the years of their remaining lives the date of December 7 meant something for them.
And, then....
--GreGen
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