[Nfbf-l] Let Us Remember The Hero's Tomorrow !Pearl Harbor Day December 7, 1941

[REPCODDS at aol.com]

____________________________________
 From: president at nabv.org
To: repcodds at aol.com
Sent: 12/6/2012 3:06:58  P.M. Eastern Standard Time
Subj: Let Us Remember Pearl Harbor Day December  7, 1941




(AP  Photo/Waco Tribune Herald, Rod Aydelotte) 
The anniversary of  the 1941 attack at Pearl Harbor is an opportunity for 
America to remember  those who served their country in the military. All of 
them are heroes, and  perhaps none more so than those who served in World War 
II. 
Author  and journalist Tom Brokaw wrote a book calling them “the Greatest 
Generation,”  and few would argue. All they did was survive the Great 
Depression and then  save an entire world from an almost biblical kind of evil. 
Today World War II  is kept alive by Hollywood and cable channels. The 
overwhelming majority of  Americans are too young to remember it personally, and 
the numbers of  those who served in what they simply called “the war” are 
dwindling as old age  now takes those who battled Germany, Italy and Japan.  
  
One of them was  Frank Curre of Waco, Texas, a man who lived a life filled 
with ironies that  began when the Japanese plunged the United States into 
the war with the attack  on Pearl Harbor. 
Curre joined the  Navy in June 1941 because, at the height of the 
Depression, he and tens of  thousands of others simply couldn’t find work. The 
17-year-old had to  threaten to “bribe a hobo’’ to forge his mother’s name to 
get her to sign off  on his enlistment.
On Dec. 7, 1941, 18-year-old Curre was a cook on the  battleship Tennessee 
at Pearl Harbor when the Japanese attacked,  killing over 2,400 Americans. 
Much later in his life, he spoke numerous times  to students at Tennyson 
Middle School in Waco about the  
World War II era.  Mary Duty’s seventh and eighth graders were captivated 
as he described the  attack, telling of the “lucky break” he got when a bomb 
exploded on  Tennessee’s deck close to him and literally blew him, unhurt, 
into the  water. He watched moments later as another bomb landed on the 
exact spot he  had been standing on. He called it “pure luck” that he  survived 
Boatswain’s Mate 1st  Class Curre spent much of the war on the escort 
carrier Petrof Bay  fighting at Truk, Iwo Jima, Peleliu, Leyte Gulf and Okinawa. 
The ship, called  “Double 40” by its crew, was awarded five battle stars 
and a Presidential  Citation
Curre did not know until long after the war that, in another  irony, Petrof 
Bay was helping provide support for his brother  Edwin as he went ashore 
with the third wave of Marines to secure Okinawa in  June 1945 – the first 
capture of what was considered Japanese  soil. Neither knew the other was there 
until it came up in a family  conversation.  
After the war Curre  returned to Waco, married his high school sweetheart 
Alma, and worked as a  newspaper pressman for 60 years. He was considered a 
spokesman for  veterans and was active in veterans groups, notably The 
American Legion – he  especially loved hanging out with the members of Waco Post 
121 – and his  beloved Pearl Harbor survivors group. The national Pearl 
Harbor Survivors  Association officially disbanded due to dwindling membership on 
Dec. 31, 2011,  but its spirit survives in the Lone Star State. Curre’s 
death  left six members of the Central Texas chapter. 
In a final irony,  Curre died, at 88, on Dec. 7, 2011 – the 70th 
anniversary of the attack.  He had suffered from mesothelioma caused by his naval 
service; his disability  for it had been approved just the day before. 
The half dozen  members of the Central Texas chapter had scheduled a visit 
to Pearl Harbor for  December 2011. As president of the group, Curre had 
planned to go along,  but his illness made that impossible. His family 
contacted Vice President J.C.  Alston, and Alston passed the word to the tour bus at 
Pearl Harbor. The  members pulled over and held a moment of silence in Curre
’s  honor.  
The students at  Tennyson Middle School won’t forget Curre, either. When, 
as part of a school  project, they set about turning an empty classroom into 
a Hall of Honor for  those who fought in World War II, they named it after 
him. 
Curre and his wife  Alma – who died in 1994 – had two daughters, Linda and 
Peggy. Linda  married a Vietnam War veteran who is today suffering the 
effects of Agent  Orange. Curre’s nephew, Army Sgt. 1st Class Mario Alvarez, is 
a 22-year  Army combat veteran who served two tours of duty in Iraq. He 
helped arrange  the funeral services with military protocol in mind, and invited 
the American  Legion Riders and the Patriot Guard – who as usual showed up 
in droves to  honor a fallen hero, as did a biker group of Vietnam veterans. 
Waco’s  congressman, Bill Flores, arranged for a flag to be flown over the 
U.S.  Capitol in Curre’s honor and made sure that the flag was delivered to 
the  family.  
Frank Curre always  wondered why so many sailors around him died at Pearl 
Harbor while he  survived. Linda replied that God spared him, so that he 
could come home and  tell the story of what some historians call the “last good 
war.” But he kept  things in perspective. While serving as the official 
grand marshal of Waco’s  Veterans Day parade in 2011, he was asked by a reporter 
what it’s like to be a  hero. “I‘m not a hero,” he replied. “They‘re the 
ones who never made it  home.” 
 
Dwight D.  Sayer 
President, 
The National  Association of Blind Veterans 
PO Box  784957 
Winter Garden,  Florida 34788 
(407)  877-8668 
president at nabv.org 
www.nabv.org 


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