Todays paper features an interview with a gentleman that served in the Navy at Pearl Harbor
a couple excerpts:

James Moores said he was "an 18-year-old snot-nosed kid" 70 years ago today aboard the destroyer tender USS Dobbin anchored at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
"I was an 18-year-old man by the end of that day," he said.

....

"I was a seaman second class, a deck hand," Moores said. "We were peons, green guys with no rank or anything. So it was 'you do this' or 'you do that' and you didn't argue much."

.....

Moores then was transferred to the Dobbin, anchored a short distance away. There, he joined his older brother Arthur.
Two weeks later, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.
Moores was dressed in his "whites," ready for shore leave and a date "with a cute little gal."
"She was Oriental, and after the attack they were interned, and I never saw her again," he said

.....

Moores saw the first bomb fall and explode on Ford Island, but he thought it was just a drill.
"Then the plane swung around us, and I saw that red meatball on the side," he said, referring to the airplane's red Rising Sun emblem. "I said to my brother, 'oh s***; look at that.' Then all hell broke loose."
An officer assigned Moores to man a .30-caliber machine gun on an upper deck.
"The only weapon I had ever fired was a (1903) Springfield rifle," he said. "I never fired a machine gun. It scared the hell out of me when I first pulled the trigger."

Thank you to each every veteran!

Here is a link that might be useful: read more

DH and I were talking about that this morning. I was 11 at the time. I remember there was concern that an uncle would have to go to war but he didn't. A cousin did- he was 19 when he was drafted- did his job but came home a broken man. Never really recovered.

My oldest sister joined the W.A.A.C. the next year ( Women's Auxiliary Army Corp (Before they changed it to WACS

Someone wrote me in an email "We forgive but we dont forget" I grew up with the song Remember Pearl Haror I think it was a Sammy Kaye record

I remember it because we lived in Ventura CA and I was 9 years old and thought the islands off the coast was Pearl Harbor. Scared me to death until grandparents convinced me otherwise. Had some of my Uncles serve, but Dad was too young for WW1 and too old for WW2, but did work at North American making P-51s etc Remember driving along the coast with just parking lights, and black out curtains on all the windows of the house. Lots of memories--some good, some not so good.