Big thanks to Dennis McCarthy at the LA Daily News for writing such a heartfelt piece on Papa, his friends and the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor 68 years ago today - "They walk slower these days, much slower. A few need the help of canes, while their buddies rely on the steady shoulders of their wives to lean on.
It nearly brings tears to your eyes to see them aged and bowed like this. But not defeated. Never defeated.
As young men, they fought and lived through "a date which will live in infamy," as President Franklin D. Roosevelt called it.
Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941. Today - 68 years ago.
The San Fernando Valley chapter of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association is down to a handful of active members now, and a few more who keep in touch from home because they're too infirm to make it to monthly meetings anymore.
A few decades ago, 100 men, many with their wives, would have been briskly striding across the grass at Warner Park in Woodland Hills to meet and talk about what they were doing the morning a sneak attack by the enemy drew America into World War II.
Today, it's five men and two wives. All walking slowly. Ninety is just around the corner or has already arrived for them.
Art Herriford, 87, and his wife, Shirley. Joe Mariani, 90, and his wife, Thelma. Joe Ceo, 89, Curly Elliott, 88, and George Keene, 86.
None of the guys wanted to talk about the war. Any war. Not today. They wanted to talk about Leon Kolb, their friend who died at 91 last week and will be buried today at Forest Lawn Memorial-Park, Hollywood Hills - on Pearl Harbor Day.
A memorial service will be held at 10 a.m. at St.Charles Borromeo Church at 10828 Moorpark Road in North Hollywood.
Kolb was 23 and manning a forward gun turret on the USS Oklahoma the morning 429 sailors on his battleship died. It was the second-highest loss of life on a ship at Pearl Harbor. The USS Arizona lost 1,177 men.
When the History Channel did a show on the 60th anniversary of Pearl Harbor and the men who were there, Kolb - a retired Los Angeles city firefighter - was front and center.
"When I was a policeman, I ran across a fireman one day who said he knew Leon Kolb, and knew we had been together at Pearl Harbor," Curly Elliott was telling the guys.
"I said don't ever forget that name because Leon was the finest, most caring, bravest person I'd ever met."
They all knew the story of how Leon almost died that day trying to get back to his locker below to save the engagement ring he had bought for his future wife of 68 years, Lucille.
"Leon was fighting to get below, but the guys in the ship's magazine told him to get out of there now, there wasn't any time," Herriford said.
"It saved his life. None of the men in the magazine survived that day. Leon didn't get the ring, but he did get the girl." Read more here...
