Raymond Haerry has died at the age of 94.
I want to take a few moments to concentrate on someone other than Donald J. Trump and those vulgar remarks about women.
Raymond Haerry served on a battleship during World War II. It was the USS Arizona. Haerry was on board the old ship when Japanese fighter pilots roared in over Honolulu harbor and started bombing the U.S. Navy ships anchored at Pearl Harbor.
Haerry was one of the last survivors of that attack. With his passing, only five men remain. The hero’s son, Raymond Jr., plans take his father’s ashes to the Battleship Arizona Memorial in Honolulu to inter them next to his shipmates.
Haerry’s death is worth noting for a lot of reasons. I’ll cite just a couple of them.
Raymond Jr. said his dad was aboard the ship when the attack commenced. He tried to man a deck gun to fire at the enemy, but the ammo was locked up. As he tried to secure some ammunition, a bomb exploded on the ship. He jumped into the water and swam through flames to the shore, where he was able to return fire at the marauding aircraft.
He represents what’s come to be known as The Greatest Generation, a term made famous by a book of that name written by the legendary broadcast journalist Tom Brokaw.
All told during the nearly four years the United States fought in World War II, we sent 16 million men and women into the fight. They are dying rapidly these days. Only a fraction of those Americans remain among us.
My wife and I — God willing — are likely to outlive the last American veteran of that great conflict.
We’ve had the pleasure of seeing the Arizona memorial. We went there in September 2010 and could see the outline of the ship just below the surface of the water. One’s heart breaks at the sight of the ship — and of knowing that many of the more than 1,100 crew members’ remains are entombed there.
I want to honor Raymond Haerry’s service to our great country. His heroism cannot be denied, just as so many Americans’ served heroically during a dark time in our nation’s history.
They, indeed, comprised our Greatest Generation.
