This is the last time these veterans will come to Hawaii as it's the last time for the 350 Pearl Harbor survivors gather. Most are near 90.

A Portland, Oregon newspaper was the first to use the phrase, "Remember Pearl Harbor!." We never want to forget -- but the new generations will -- so now we have Sept. 11, 2001 to kept us alert to the enemies of freedom.

But we old guys will never forget "Pearl" and the heroes it made and the lives that were sacrificed on the altar of such a noble cause. It thrust our nation into a world confligration that threatened the freedoms of people.

This morning in Atlanta, WSB-AM 750 is doing a very nice job announcing it at every newsbreak. It's the 65th anniversary and the men and women who experienced it have been having a reunion every five years and are meeting today through this weekend. Most of them are in their 80's and 90's and a spokesperson for them said it has been a wonderful way to stay in contact with each other over the years as they "Remembered Pearl Harbor" -- BUT no plans are being made for another reunion. This week they will be saying, "Goodbye!" to each other. They are a real part of the Greatest Generation we are loosing so very rapidly. (See next article.)

I found several wonderful web sites for those who want to seriously understand the attack on Pearl Harbor. They are excellent presentations of what happened at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. You can link to them at the end of this article. The National Geographic site is superb. Click the movie to get an overview and then click the scrapbook to read some of the stories of those who were there.

You won't regret visiting these sites in order to see and hear all the information about that fateful day. For a few, it will refresh the memory. For most who would visit, it will teach them about something they never really knew about other that what Hollywood had tried to portray.

Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto headed up the attack, but did you know this about him? Isoroku Yamamoto studied at Harvard from 1919 to 1921, and returned to the United States in 1925 on a diplomatic mission. He didn't want to go to war with the United States, but when called upon by his country Yamamoto planned the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor and then led the Japanese navy to its early victories in World War II. When the U.S. decoded a Japanese message in 1943 that included Admiral Yamamoto's itinerary, they ambushed his plane in the south Pacific and killed him.

The site even has excellent audio of all the main newscasts so there is no need for Ramblin's to add it to this article. Here is a sample of their written presentation:

Pearl Harbor, on the Island of O'ahu, Hawaii, (then a territory of the United States) was attacked by the Japanese Imperial Navy, at approximately 8:00 A.M., Sunday morning, December 7, 1941.

The surprise attack had been conceived by Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. The strking force of 353 Japanese aircraft was led by Commander Mitsuo Fuchida. There had been no formal declaration of war.

Approximately 100 ships of the U.S. Navy were out to sea, which was American's salvation. Two destroyers, the USS Cassin (DD372) and the USS Downes (DD375) were in dry dock #1 (with the USS Pennsylvania) and the destroyer USS Shaw (DD373) was in floating dry dock #2, approximately two hundred yards to the west. The USS Ogala (CM-4) was moored next to the USS Helena (CL50) near the "1010" dock, Naval Ship yard. Two heavy cruisers, the USS New Orleans (CA32) and the San Francisco (CA38) were in the Navy Yard Repair Basin.

Present that morning in the harbor of Pearl were battleships, destroyers, cruisers and various support ships.

USS Arizona (BB39) Battleship
USS West Virginia (BB48) Battleship
USS California (BB44) Battleship
USS Oklahoma (BB37) Battleship
USS Nevada (BB36) Battleship
USS Pennsylvania (BB38) Battleship (in dry dock #1)
USS Tennessee (BB43) Battleship
USS Maryland (BB46) Battleship
USS Vestal (AR4) Repair ship
USS Neosho (AO23) Oiler
USS Detroit (CL8) Light cruiser
USS Raleigh (CL7) Light cruiser
USS Utah (AG16) Target Ship
USS Tangier (AV8) Seaplane Tender

Over half the U.S. Pacific fleet was out to sea, including the carriers. If they had not been.... who knows?

Simultaneously, nearby Hickam Field was also the victim of the surprise attack by the Japanese. 18 Army Aircorps aircraft including bombers and fighters and attack bombers were destroyed or damaged on the ground. A few U.S. fighters struggled into the air against the invaders and gave a good account of themselves.

A total of twenty-nine Japanese aircraft were shot down by ground fire and U.S pilots from various military installations on O'ahu.

The freedom we all enjoy today was bought with a serious price. Freeedom is not free. It never has been.

Some say the men and women who grew up during the depression and served in WW2 are anywhere from 75 to 90 years of age and leaving this time and space dimension at the rate of nearly 1,500 a day... that's over 10,000 a week

We need to realize what is happening. I remember when there were still Civil War Veterans and Spanish American War Veterans. All the WW1's are gone and this generation is the next. I want to thank my niece, Christine Shaw, who lives in Flagstaff, AZ for sending this simple, sincere, and moving website.

Click the first link below and then begin to scroll to read and listen to a moving story and photographs that this Doctor has put together. Then click the second link that will introduce you to some incredible moving photos from Iraq.

Below is an excellent story by Ronnie Thomas, a reporter for the Decatur Daily, Decatur Alabama. It's about "one of those special people" we are losing. The story was written for last fall's Veteran's Day.

Wallace Willingham was 65 years old before he began to say much about his experiences in World War II. And then it was only at the prodding of his children. As youngsters, they tore apart their father's book about the Army's 87th Infantry Division, hoping to learn at least something of what their dad endured, after he balked at their questions.

"Were you ever shot at?" they would ask.

"Sometimes," he'd say.

So that his grandchildren and great-grandchildren also would know what he did in the war, he gathered a cache of old material, including maps, newspaper clippings, letters and photographs from storage to show them. The framed documents now occupy a place of honor on a den wall of his Betty Street Southwest home. As American soldiers battle insurgents in Iraq, the retired minister prays for them, and he honors them. He bonds with them, too, and he believes they are as much of a "greatest generation" as he was.

And he realizes that some toss "hero" about loosely. "A hero is one who does what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, regardless of the consequences," he said. "Our men and women in Iraq are heroes."

The Army drafted Willingham, now 78, out of Jacksonville High School in 1944 as an 11th-grader. He said he could have gotten a deferment because of farming, but he was ready to go.

"Anyway, who could have imagined a Depression-era Alabama farm boy getting a ride on the Queen Mary?" he said.

The luxury ship that the Allies transformed to a troop carrier docked in Scotland. In January 1945, Willingham crossed the English Channel to Le Havre, France. His unit pushed into Belgium, where fierce fighting continued in the aftermath of the major German offensive at Bastogne, known as the Battle of the Bulge.

While holding a position on a hillside in Saint-Hubert, west of Bastogne, Willingham watched famed Gen. George S. Patton Jr. riding in a jeep, reviewing the troops. Later, as Willingham's unit prepared to join the attack on the Siegfried Line — Adolph Hitler's fortification along the French and German border — Patton came for a speech to the commanders of several divisions of his 3rd Army, to "tell them what we were going to be facing." Willingham said Patton noted, "We're going to Berlin and raise the American flag, but there will be some dog tags brought back."

Willingham recounted a somewhat humorous incident that occurred near the Mosel River when he and fellow scout John Sherrer of Queens, N.Y., and four others went on patrol to nab a German soldier to interrogate about troop movements.

"It was dark, and we came upon an older fellow dressed in a uniform," he said. "We returned to camp with a local firefighter. A newspaper account ran the headline, '87th captures fire department.' But our officers told us not to fret, that he was as good as an SS trooper in giving us what we needed. We took him back, thanked him and released him."

On another patrol, Willingham and another soldier walked down a road when an 88 mm shell dropped between them. "We would have been gone for sure, but luckily, it was a dud," he said. "All I could think of at the moment was that mother had me on a prayer list at church. And I pressed the little Gideon Bible that I carried in my jacket pocket closer."

Nicknamed "Tuffy" by the men in his platoon, the scrappy Willingham crossed the Rhine River near Rheims, Germany, on March 25, 1945, his 19th birthday. "As we fought to hold our ground, and it became more desperate for the Germans the tougher the war became," he said, "we faced five counterattacks, at times the enemy coming at us with fixed bayonets that involved some hand-to-hand combat."

Willingham's outfit drove south of Berlin and pushed to the Czechoslovakian border, where they met Russian soldiers. The war in Europe ended in May 1945, and after a 30-day leave, Willingham prepared to be a part of the force that would invade Japan. But atomic bombs dropped on two Japanese cities in early August forced surrender the next month.

Only after he felt that his mission was complete did Willingham seek help for frostbite, which he suffered in one of his legs fighting during the bitter winter. He spent the last months of 1945 in a hospital at Camp Atterberry, Ind., near Indianapolis, where the Army discharged him.

Among his medals is the Bronze Star, which he received "for meritorious achievement in ground combat against an armed enemy."

In 2004, The Denver Post featured an article in it’s Scene section that stopped me cold.

Leslie Limbo, contributing writer for the POST, wrote a wonderful article of a nine year old boy who WAS THERE WHEN IT HAPPENED IN PEARL HARBOR. I can no longer link you to the Denver Post’s Web page that had this article so I must transcribe it for you as follow:.

Sixty-three years later, he can still remember the sounds of aircraft on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941. Unlike many eyewitnesses to the Pearl Harbor attack, Colorado Springs resident Roy Warren wasn’t a sailor or a soldier on duty in Hawaii that fateful day. He was a 9-year-old boy looking out his bedroom window as history began unfolding before him.

“I could see the Japanese torpedo bombers about 15-20 feet above our house; they were flying toward the harbor and battleship row. I ran to my parent’s bedroom and yelled, ‘I think the Japanese are bombing us.’

Warren and his mother, Catherine, had joined his father Harold, a Navy ensign, on Hawaii in the summer of 1941. “It was common knowledge we were preparing for war,” Warren said. “But we thought the war would be fought in the Phillipines or somewhere closer to Japan.”

Even so, people were preparing. He recalled air raid drills in the months leading up to Dec. 7. During the drills, Marines in full battle dress would pick the children up from the Navy-run school about 100 yards from battleship row and take them to the administrative building, a concrete structure where they waited as the marines told the children to be quiet. “It was like a junior boot camp.

On Dec. 7, while the raid was going on, his father told the family to stay inside as he headed toward headquarters to work at the communications center at Pearl Harbor. But like most children, Warren got restless, so he and a buddy went exploring outside. “We found shrapnel and pieces of brass fuses that were still hot enough to burn our fingers,” Warren says. “We put the stuff we found in a coffee can.

Though his Navy housing area was not a target, houses were damaged in the attack as shrapnel fell on some of the roofs, including his. Bullets went all the way through a bedroom in the house across the street as some of the Japanese torpedo bombers must have started their straffing fire early.

Warren’s voice grew husky as he described the sailors in wet clothing who came up to the housing area after the attack looking for dry clothing and weapons. “They needed something to fight back with and didn’t have anything. I vowed then that I’d always have something to protect my family with. There are so many people who have never been up against anything like that.”

The Marines set up a machine gun nest next to the Warren house. A week later, when it became apparent Japan was not invading Hawaii, the sailors returned to Pearl Harbor. School was closed for nearly six months after the attack. Warren and his friends had plenty of time to go exploring.

“All the kids in the neighborhood scavenged for stuff. We found uniforms, bayonets, and other things. The Navy had gathered a lot of equipment and supplies that had been damaged and dumped it. There were complete wall lockers that had Christmas Cards inside in the dump. I didn’t read them; just saw them. Some of the weapons recovered from the ships were dumped because of the salt water or were covered in oil. I must have found a dozen rifles or more We played soldiers and sailors or cowboys and Indians with all the stuff. Nobody cared about what we had done or were doing with it.”

Warren and his family remained in Hawaii after the war. He received a degree in tropical agriculture from the University of Hawaii and later became a real estate broker. He also served in the US Army Reserves, retiring with the rank of major.

In the 1990’s he and his wife Patricia moved to Colorado Springs. In 1992 he and his mother received, on behalf of his father, a medal that the US Dept. of Defense awarded military members who survived the attack on Pearl Harbor. About ten years ago, Warren contacted the Admiral Nimitz State Historical Site National Museum of the Pacific War in Fredricksburg, Texas and arranged to donate his Pearl Harbor artifacts. He also made a recording of his memoires of the the day of the attack for the museum. <{>

Photographs of his father and the family form part of the exhibit. Warren’s memorabilia provides visitors with a different look at World War II, explains Mike Lebens, associate curator of the museum. “It allows them to look at war through a child’s eyes and brings home the reality of war to Americans who have never seen war on their own soil.”

While Warren's memorabilia of the Pearl Harbor attacks now rest in a Texas museum, Warren will always carry the memories of that terrible day on December 7, 1941.

-- Leslie Limbo, The Denver Post 12/7/04

At one time, let's say 40 years ago, you could only find a Claxton Fruitcake in Georgia. Today, you can find them in your supermarket... almost anywhere. The "Claxtons" are delicious, mainly because they are jammed full of Georgia pecans. If you can't find one and want to taste one, let me know. Chris writes about another really good fruit cake -- the Collin Street Bakery premium fruitcake that has been made in Corsicana, Texas since 1989.

I just heard today, November 25, 2006, that we will not be permitted to take a fruit cake past airport security in any carry-on luggage. Seem like the density of the product looks a great deal like gunpowder. Now there's something to think about and pass on as one of your Christmas reality jokes.]

Ah yes, ‘tis the season for yet another holiday tradition! Just like good ole Saint Nick himself it’s time for that long-lived and oft-maligned gastronomic wonder, the noble fruitcake, to rise from it’s darkened celestial cupboard and set out on its holiday “gift given” rounds, spreading joy and good cheer the wide world over.

And to serve as a yuletide warning for all the headstrong and precocious children of the planet to behave themselves, ere the firm hands of justice should force them in punishment to actually eat a piece!

As far back as the gilded Christmas age of Charles Dickens’ England, the fruitcake has suffered the “slings and arrows of outrageous” culinary reviews. It was Dickens himself who once referred to it as “a geological homemade cake,” but it was under Johnny Carson’s watch on the Tonight Show that fruitcakedom witnessed its public relations low-point with a series “vicious and slanderous” chucklers, the best of which was… “There’s only one fruitcake in the entire U.S. and it’s passed around year after year, from family to family!”

Not laughing? Well I suppose we lack Ed McMahon’s “Ho-Ho’ing” shotgun-backup for the full “Carson effect.”

There are a few among fruitcake’s myriad fans (and those who just pretend to be for “image’s sake”) that trace its beginnings back to Egyptian times when cakes of dried fruit (in a tasteful dusting of natron) were prepared for the Pharaoh to take with him into the afterlife.

Still others cite the first fruitcakes occurring in Roman times, when a sumptuous mélange of raisins, pine nuts, and pomegranate were set in a barley mash and baked to produce a dense, durable food stuff that could easily travel on long campaigns with the conquering legions.

During the Middle Ages in Europe honey became an essential ingredient of the cakes, as a flavoring and a preservative. With the advent of cheap sugar, brought by the colonial trade of the 1600’s, fruitcake’s shelf-life steadily increased as the nuts and fruity bits were soaked in greater and greater concentrations of sugar.

By the 1700’s these cakes were used in various religious festivals, harvest celebrations, and weddings. In rural communities the harvest was marked by the baking of special cakes, which were stored until the following year to bring luck to the new year’s crop. Along a similar vein, in some parts of England the upper layer of wedding cakes (the bride’s cake) is still made of fruitcake, which the newly wed couple keeps for the coming year(s).

No one seems to be certain why fruitcakes became associated with Christmas time, but one imaginative story involves a late 1700’s English custom of handing out slices of cake to impoverished women who traveled door to door at Christmas, singing carols. Another possibility involves another English law from the 1700’s, which restricts the use of plum cake (i.e. fruitcake) to Christmas, Easter, weddings, christenings and funerals. In any case most fruitcakes are eaten (or I should say, “sold”) at holiday time.

Here in America, the modern Christmas fruitcake comes in two basic varieties, typically formed into a dense ring-shaped loaf, often topped in pecans. One variety is the “light fruitcake;” this uses sugar or corn syrup and a mixture of walnuts, almonds, pecans, golden raisins, pineapple, lemon rind, apricot, and cherry, bound in a sweet heavy dough.

"Dark fruitcakes" employ brown sugar or molasses as the main sweetener, and often use additional fruits such as dark raisins, prunes, and dates. Both varieties are often available with bourbon, brandy, or some other eau de vie as an added flavoring.

Despite all the jokes and their bad image, fruitcakes can be big business. The two largest fruitcake companies hail from the rural South, where traditionally fruit and nutmeats were available at bargain prices. The top-selling fruitcake company is the Claxton Bakery out of Claxton, Georgia -- you've seen it with it's two inch square loaf that is about eight inches long and chucked full of Georgia pecans. The rival to Claxton is the Collin Street Bakery in Corsicana, Texas. The Claxton Bakery does not readily disclose exactly how many of their unusual brick shaped “beauties” are foisted upon humanity each year, but in one article they mention that a single government commissary once placed an order for 65,000 cakes. Oddly enough, a surprisingly large portion of all fruitcakes produced go to Japan!

For those brave few souls who feel inspired to actually do some fruitcake nibbling this holiday season, I can offer but a scant few tips. Sadly –perhaps I mean “happily”- my experience has been limited to only a few mass-produced examples of the fruitcake baker’s art. I suppose I should also warn you that my opinion is further handicapped by a hatred of maraschino cherries!

Most of the fruitcakes I’ve eaten have struck me as quite dry and bland, but find that the Claxton fruitcakes (while still bland compared to fruit breads like German stollen, Italian panetone, and French kougelhof) …the Claxton cakes have a wet dense texture that I find a bit more palatable than other options I’ve sampled -including the fruit-flavored CLIF and Powerbars that mountainbikers and "outdoorsy types" so often rave about. I've never had a Collin Street fruitcake, but know those who swear by them. (Or was it "at them?") I hear that the dark variety of fruitcake has a bolder flavor and that all of them are much improved if they’ve been baked with a little bourbon or some other liqueur.

Fruitcakes also improve with time; a good three months are required for the flavors from the fruits to fully blend and meld into the sweet doughy binder. Carefully stored, a fruitcake can last for years! The first thing to "go" on them will be the nuts.

Though I’ve never tried them, I hear that Trappist monks can make some pretty good fruitcakes! Two “orders” renowned for their bourbon laced cakes are the Abbey of Gethsemane near Louisville, Kentucky (www.monks.org) and the Holy Cross Abbey in Berryville, Virginia. (www.monasteryfruitcake.org).

For those curious to have a look at the operations of the top-producing Claxton Bakery their web address is www.claxtonfruitcake.com. And in the interest of granting equal billing for our "Texas friends" the Collin Street Bakery's site is www.collinstreetbakery.com.

Norman Plunkett

God is good -- ALWAYS!

And especially as He floods you with all the grace you need no matter what the situation. As you trust Him, God's grace is always just enough and always on time.