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Web Posted : 12/08/2001 12:00 AM
FREDERICKSBURG — Former President George Bush told Pearl Harbor survivors and other World War II veterans Friday they'll serve as a source of inspiration for a new generation of Americans facing the scourge of terrorism.
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"In America, we don't have kings or royalty, but in my view, that does not mean we lack nobility," Bush said. "Quite the contrary. Today we see a new band of heroes stepping forward to follow in the long line of Americans who answered the call of duty, fought for freedom and served their fellow man with honor and dignity."
Bush spoke to a crowd of 5,000 gathered here for the 60th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. During the ceremony, there was no escaping the similarities between the Sept. 11 terror strikes and 1941 attack on the Navy base in Hawaii.
Both attacks came out of the blue. Both saw horrific casualties. Both awakened an easily distracted nation, sparking a deep anger among Americans and a fierce determination to crush the enemy.
Standing in the shadow of the mainmast of the destroyer USS Foote outside the National Museum of the Pacific War, Bush tackled the parallels of the two days that stand among the grimmest on America's 2-century-old calendar.
In discussing them, he charted an upbeat course for the crowd, which included retired Brig. Gen. Chuck Yeager, a World War II ace who made history by breaking the sound barrier in a rocket plane in 1947. |
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Pearl Harbor veterans (from left) Ken Swedburg
of Alamo; Wilbur Wright of Fairfax, Mo.; and Thomas J. Powell of West Point salute during the national
anthem at the 60th anniversary ceremony of the Pearl
Harbor attack at the National Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg on Friday.
Photo by Kin Man Hui/Express-News |
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Bush said his son and other U.S. leaders are "being tested by the forces of tyranny," just as President Franklin D. Roosevelt was challenged by Japan and Germany after Pearl Harbor.
But Americans, he predicted, are poised to pass this latest test.
"I say to each of you and them that your courage during the defining hour of the 20th century gives this country the same steadiness of purpose (and) the same resolution to meet this, the first great challenge of the 21st century," he said of World War II veterans living and dead.
"And today your selfless example of service offers our nation a deep, abiding reservoir of confidence from which we can draw forth the necessary will to once again turn back the tide of tyranny that crashed upon America's shores."
Before Bush sat 300 Pearl Harbor veterans, along with their wives and children. More than a few wore Hawaiian shirts, carried cameras and tapped their feet as the Air Force Band of the West from Lackland AFB performed.
A standing-room-only crowd behind those seats stretched from end to end of the street in front of the museum and the gallery named in honor of Bush, a naval aviator who bailed out of his crippled plane in September 1944 after a bombing run on the Japanese island of Chichi Jima.
The crowd watched four F-16 jets with their landing gear down fly slowly over the museum. The fighters later passed by a second time, one plane breaking away from the rest in a "missing man" formation traditionally flown on Pearl Harbor day.
Pearl Harbor was in ruins after the second wave of Japanese planes flew back to their carriers in 1941. In all, 19 ships were sunk or damaged, 2,408 Americans were killed and an additional 1,178 were wounded.
Japan lost 29 aircraft and five midget submarines and 64 were killed.
"Today we stand in the company of heroes — men and women who know that freedom is not free, but requires a great cost," said Gov. Rick Perry. "America is free because you are brave. America's strong because of that day 60 years ago; you answered the call of duty."
Perry said terrorists picked a fight "with the wrong nation and the wrong leader."
The elder Bush told the crowd in his closing remarks that "our president has the courage to see this new crisis through just as Roosevelt did 60 years ago."
That message resonated with many veterans in the audience.
"I've got a real good feeling toward our president today, that he's going to stick with it," said USS Helena veteran Howard Luckham, 83, of Springfield, Ore.
Yeager, 78, and other veterans insisted after the ceremony that they aren't heroes.
"You had a job to do, you do it and don't ask questions," said 77-year-old Jack Edge of Grandy, N.C.
The ground-floor opportunity to take on the menacing Axis powers was, for Al DuBois, a matter of timing.
"Most of us, we never went around telling people we were Pearl Harbor survivors," said the 80-year-old DuBois, a retired oil company manager from Ocala, Fla., who served on the battleship USS Pennsylvania. "Pennsy" received only minor damage in the attack.
"I mean, we had a job to do so we did it. I think we lived our life, and I'm hoping that the other generation coming up now will do the same thing."
sigc@express-news.net
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