This story originally included the wrong date of the Parl Harbor attack.
On December 7th, 194`1, President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared it "a day that will live in infamy" after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. And today, 80 years later, the lives that were lost at the harbor are being honored in the annual commemoration at the University of Arizona.
The commemoration begins at 7:15am on the USS Arizona Mall Memorial on the university's campus. It's hosted by ROTC and there will be a reception to follow in the student union.
There will be speeches and a bell ringing ceremony where they will recite the names of the eight Arizonans that lost their lives at Pearl Harbor. Last year, the ceremony was pre-recorded and broadcast online.
One of the speakers, Andrew Desautel said there are only two Pearl Harbor survivors left. The number slowly dwindled throughout the past few decades and Desautel said it was an honor to get to know these brave men.
"Every year I would meet my heroes who originally as a kid I would read about in books or see on TV," he said. "And suddenly here I am they've become like extended family to me."
From listening to the veteran's happy memories to taking to hear the tough stories, he said he realized the importance of this moment in history.
"It’s easy to forget the guys who were at pearl and the guys on the Arizona," he said. "For them that was only day one. As bad as that was, that afternoon we were at war and guys were shipping out. Some of the guys who were even mildly wounded they were already heading to war zones to mount a defense.”
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