Utah's final four Pearl Harbor survivors

TAYLORSVILLE — Amy Caywood wanted Grandpa to go back to Pearl Harbor for one more commemoration.

Marion Kesler, stationed at Pearl Harbor 69 years ago as a cook on the USS Hulbert, was present in Hawaii in 1991 and 2006 to commemorate previous anniversaries of Japan's 1941 ambush attack. The 91-year-old's deteriorating mobility had made it painfully apparent that 2010 would be his last best chance for a final pilgrimage to Hawaii. So several months ago Caywood cajolingly convinced her maternal grandfather to return to Pearl Harbor this year for one final on-site commemoration on Dec. 7.

Together with his wife, daughter and assorted grandchildren, Kesler traveled to Pearl Harbor earlier this month. Joining the Taylorsville resident at the ceremony marking the 69th anniversary were 128 of his fellow Pearl Harbor survivors, a group that today is comprised of approximately 2,000 living veterans.

"It felt really good in my heart to go back again," Kesler said. "It's always good to get a warm reception from the people there."

This year's Dec. 7 anniversary of "the day that will live in infamy" marked the first time in decades that no Pearl Harbor memorial was held in the Beehive State to honor the surviving veterans and their fallen comrades — no bugles playing taps; no bells tolling for the deceased; no reading of the names of those killed in combat.

"This is the only year that we didn't do anything," said 89-year-old Ken Potts of Provo, one of only 20 surviving crewmen of the USS Arizona. "We're getting to where there are hardly any of us left."

The cessation of Dec. 7 commemoration ceremonies in Utah is no big surprise given the waning numbers of Pearl Harbor survivors that Potts references and the increasingly frail health of those who do remain. It's a circumstance that was long foreseen, but its inevitability does nothing to detract from the sense of loss that comes with watching an annual tradition fade into the annals of history.

"I think (Pearl Harbor) will be remembered less and less each year," said Max Burggraaf, a 92-year-old Pearl Harbor survivor living in Salt Lake City. "That's happening already. I doubt if it's taught in school. My own children and grandchildren have a book about my life which I've written that reminds them, but I don't think anybody else hardly knows about it."