As is traditional, the Fountain Hills veterans service organizations (VFW, America Legion, AMVETS and Marine Corps League) in Fountain Hills will host a Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day ceremony. This year’s ceremony is to be held at 9 a.m. Saturday, Dec.7, at American Legion Post 58, 16837 Parkview Ave. in Fountain Hills.

This year’s theme will reflect on the “Children of Battleship Row, Pearl Harbor 1940-1941.” The keynote speaker will be Ron Smith, the immediate-past “All American” commander of Fountain Hills Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) Post 7507.

The public is invited to attend the Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day commemorative ceremony. All attendees are invited and encouraged to wear patriotic clothing. Veterans are encouraged to wear any uniform parts that still fit. Members of Veterans Service Organizations such as the VFW, AMVETS, American Legion, Disabled Vets, Marine Corps League, etc. are encouraged to wear organizational clothing.

Any Pearl Harbor survivors and other WW II veterans will be especially recognized and remembered.

In a speech to the assembled Congress on Dec. 8, 1941, the day following the attack, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt told Americans, “Yesterday, December 7, 1941 – a date which will live in infamy – the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. The United States was at peace with that nation...” As the president requested, Congress declared that a state of war existed between the U.S. and the Japanese empire.

More than 3,400 Americans were killed or wounded in that one day alone. Many more Americans and allies were to die in the coming years before the war (now known as WWII) ended. All who served are honored but especially those who served on Dec. 7, 1941.