Remembering Pearl Harbor

Dec. 7, 1941. Probably only a few of us in Spokane actually remember that day. I remember it well!

Lying on the floor of our small living room I heard Franklin D. Roosevelt over the airwaves. I was almost 12 years old. Japan had just bombed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. A sneak attack.

Many of my friends eventually entered the conflict. Some of them were my buddies; we’d swam together, played marbles and baseball.

One of my friends, Frank Buscowski, a poor kid who lived on the outskirts of town, fought with the U.S. Army in the Battle of the Bulge, then to Iwo Jima and Hiroshima. Frank chose to stay in the Army as a career military soldier. He was sent to the flats of Utah where he was subjected to radiation poison. Frank survived all of that, even the radiation testing, but he married and later watched his sons die of radiation-caused birth defects and illness.

My brother-in-law Joe Nelson flew 50 successful bombing missions out of North Africa, England and Italy, and then went on to train Air Force pilots stateside. Both of these boys were my heroes. Frank signed up when he was 18 and Joe enlisted at age 20.

When I was finally old enough to enlist, the war had ended. But I joined the Army and went off to Japan during the beginning of the occupation. I did not fight, but I followed my heroes, my friends, like Frank and Joe.

Llewellyn D. Ingwaldson

Spokane Valley