American Legion Post 211 teamed with the student body of Learwood Middle School in Avon Lake, Ohio for a ceremony of remembrance of the attacks on Pearl Harbor. Dec. 7 marked 81 years since the attacks on the United States naval base in Oahu, Hawaii.
Chuck Williams was the noncommissioned officer in charge for the Dec. 7 remembrance ceremony. For over a decade, he has helped to oversee Post 211’s activities on every Pearl Harbor Day, including the three-volley rifle salute that the group performed today.
“It goes along with essentially, saluting the dead,” Williams explained. “It’s a rifle salute to those that have passed. We’ll do it also when we give military honors to those who have died and passed away. We’ll attend a funeral or grave site and do a similar volley there.”
Along with the American Legion Post’s three-volley rifle salute, the ceremony included a student speech. Learwood Middle School student Bryan Waltz presented a speech titled, “A Proclamation in Memory of the Attack on Pearl Harbor.”
The speech detailed the attacks, how they affected World War II on the world stage, and their immediate and long-term impact on the United States and the world stage as a whole. The speech also honored the 2,403 United States citizens that were killed, and the 1,178 that were wounded, over the course of an hour and fifteen minutes in 1941.
“The expected result of the attacks was to cripple the U.S. pacific fleet for a period of time, up to eighteen months, preventing aggressive action against the imperial forces,” Waltz said. “This goal eluded the Japanese, as U.S. forces were attacking aggressively within 60 days, and the fleet was fully effective within a year.”
Remembrance of Pearl Harbor Day has become a tradition at Learwood Middle School. 2022 marked the latest chapter in this long-standing tradition for the Avon Lake school.
“This is my tenth year here,” Learwood Middle School Principal Dr. Vishtasp Nuggud said of the school’s tradition. “And this has been going on for longer than I’ve been here.”
The tradition of reverence and remembrance lives on in both the school and through the actions of Post 211. As the captain of the post today, Williams explained that he has hope for the future of the day’s traditions in the next generation.
“I just believe that we need to keep our traditions alive, and pass on to the younger kids,” Williams said. “They’re most often less exposed to military life, or the needs of (veterans).”
