December 7, 2005

Not many left who were at Pearl Harbor in 1941.

From this morning's Chicago Sun-Times:

Tom Decker was a 22-year-old pharmacist's mate from Alton, Ill., on Dec. 7, 1941, "a date which will live in infamy."

"I was in my bunk. The first thing I remember is looking out the porthole and I saw the Arizona going up in flames, smoke and damage everywhere, bombs landing," Decker recalls.

It has been 64 years since Japanese warplanes attacked Pearl Harbor. Decker is 86 years old, a past national president of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association.

Its remaining members are in their mid-80s and older.

The bell ringing ceremony in Chicago's Loop today will be one of many ceremonies memorializing December 7, 1941 today.

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