VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — On this date 82 years ago, 2,402 Americans lost their lives at Pearl Harbor. As President Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared, it was "a date which will live in infamy."
"It's important for all of us here to remember that time. We owe it to those who protected our freedoms to remember their sacrifices, learn about history, so we can tell the story to those who come after us," said Captain David Gray, Commanding Officer of Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story.
And remember it they did, at the installation's annual Remembrance Ceremony on Thursday, with the tolling of a ship's bells, the laying of a wreath, and the playing of "Taps."
Although it has now been four years since the Tidewater Chapter of Pearl Harbor Survivors lost its last living military member, their families still came out, as did the area's only known child survivor.
Eight decades-plus later, their collective hope is that Pearl Harbor is never forgotten.
"It's extremely important that we remember that, that we think about those significant days in our past," said Sue Radford Rice, who was two years old that day at her childhood home in Hawaii.
"It's so important to continue on the legacy of those who served at Pearl Harbor," said Jerry Chebetar, son of late Pearl Harbor survivor Frank Chebetar.
"Every time my dad had been interviewed, he said, 'Let's never let our guard down like we did that day.' And that's pretty accurate for today. We should be very careful about letting our guard down too much. We don't want these kinds of things to happen again," said Joseph Maggiore, son of late Pearl Harbor Survivor Joe Maggiore.
The Department of Veterans Affairs doesn't keep statistics for how many Pearl Harbor survivors are still living across the country today. But if they were 18 on that day, they'd be 100 years old now.