By Jess Mancini
The Parkersburg News and Sentinel
PARKERSBURG – The attack on Pearl Harbor that drew America into the second World War was observed Sunday at the Point in Parkersburg and behind the Armory in Marietta where numerous wreaths were tossed into the river to honor veterans.
The annual Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day ceremony was attended by about two dozen people in Parkersburg and was organized by the Parkersburg South Woman’s Club, the Veterans Museum of the Mid-Ohio Valley and the Commandant Archibald Henderson Detachment 1087 of the Marine Corps League.
The symbolic tossing of the wreaths into the Ohio River observes and remembers those who were killed in the attack on the U.S. naval base on Dec. 7, 1941. War was declared by Congress the next day.
“We need to celebrate the Greatest Generation,” April Binkney of the Veterans Museum said.
The event also honors veterans and servicemen who served or were killed in other wars, too, Binkney said.
Japanese forces attacked Pearl Harbor the morning of Dec. 7 in an attempt to cripple the U.S. Pacific Fleet. About 2,400 servicemen and Americans were killed.
In Marietta, guest speaker Master Gunnery Sergeant (Ret.) Steve Booth, United States Marine Corps, quoted President Franklin Roosevelt’s famous words: “This is a day that will live in infamy.”
“And indeed it has,” Booth said. “It lives in our memory, in our history and in our duty to honor those who stood in defense of freedom.”
The USS West Virginia was among battleships sent to the bottom of the harbor, but was raised, repaired and returned to service in 1944. The USS Arizona was sunk and it remains there to this day as a monument and tomb for the sailors killed.
“It’s definitely quite a solemn place,” Harold Smith, a Navy veteran who visited Pearl Harbor while on active service.
Booth said those aboard the USS Arizona were not thinking of politics or recognition.
“They were thinking of duty, to one another and to the country they loved,” Booth said.
Smith, a member of the Marine Corps League, was an organizer of the event and the annual donations to the Fraternal Order of Police Blennerhassett Lodge No. 79 and the Children’s Home Society of West Virginia. Each group received $750.
The league once was involved in Toys for Tots, but the Christmas-time drive is now organized by the Marine Corps, Smith said.
“That’s when we started directing our donations to the FOP and Children’s Home Society,” he said.
The Fraternal Order of Police organizes Shop with a Cop and the Heart Behind the Badge programs, Smith said.
Wreaths were tossed into the river in Parkersburg by representatives of the Army, Marines, Navy, Air Force, Veterans of Foreign Wars and the VFW Auxiliary, the American Legion and the American Legion Auxiliary, Disabled American Veterans, Welcome Home Vietnam War Vets, the Veterans Museum of the Mid-Ohio Valley, the South Parkersburg Woman’s Club, the Hitt family, the Mellinger family and the Heckert Family.
The opening and closing prayers were given by Jerry Smith of the Marine Corps League. Toni Devore of the Pipes and Drums of St. Andrew played “Amazing Grace” on the bagpipes. Bugler Wayne Starcher played “Taps.”
Booth said the legacy left behind by those who served can still be felt in our communities today.
“Their legacy is not distant,” Booth said. “It is part of our community fabric. We remember those who left farms, factories and classrooms here at home to serve in far off places like Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima and Okinawa… We see that legacy every day in the faces of our veterans, in the stories they share and in the memorials that stand in our town squares.”