December 7, 1941 is a day that President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed as one which will live in infamy. It was the day that Japanese planes raced over the sky
on the U.S. naval base of Pearl Harbor in Hawaii and fired bullets, bombs and torpedoes. Bill McAnany of Jefferson City served on the USS Solace and was nearby at the time of the attack.

USS Arizona (Photo courtesy of Bill McAnany)

“Probably the biggest thing in my naval life was the invasion of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese, where I happened to be at that particular time,” he says. “It was quite shocking. You could look off to your right from where we were standing and we saw these anti-aircraft bursts. All of a sudden, a plane fell out of the sky.”

McAnany was twenty years old and serving in the Navy as an X-ray technician aboard the 400-bed hospital ship. He says it was quite an experience.

“There were very few at that time wounds,” he says. “But everybody was burned because if they got thrown off the ship, they were in that water. It was all very, very hot.”

McAnany says the “hairiest” part of the day came at 9:30 p.m. when a U.S. aircraft carrier with six fighter planes entered and took care of business.

“They buzzed the field and all the sudden, the sky lit up like day. It reminded you of the Star-Spangled Banner. One guy got down safe. The rest of them were shot out of the sky,” he says.

Missouri Navy Sailor Bill McAnany

Japan damaged all eight U.S. Navy battleships and four sunk. All but the USS Arizona were later raised, and six were returned to service.

“We were about 100 yards away from the USS Arizona,” says McAnany. “And they were coming in using our ship as a marker to come into, but they didn’t drop any bombs near us or anything.”

When the attack was over, McAnany says he and his ship mates were required to remain on the USS Solace until after Christmas.

“They were being cautious because there was a lot of talk about invasions,” McAnany says.

He says the aftermath of the strike was brutal.

“We would send a couple of boats out every day and they would just go through the harbor and picking up the guys that had come to the surface,” says McAnany. “We were doing that until we left in mid-March.”

The attack killed more than 2,400 Americans and wounded 1,100 others – launching America’s entry into World War II.

McAnany served his country for 20 years, rising to the rank of Chief Petty Officer. He spent much of his 20-year Navy career in Asia.

The 98-year-old St. Louis native wants to spend his 100th birthday visiting Pearl Harbor, which falls around the time of his 50th wedding anniversary and the 80th anniversary of the attack.

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Photo courtesy of Ft. Leonard Wood

One of Fort Leonard Wood’s largest meals of the year is being prepared at the southern Missouri base. About 300 food service workers are whipping up roughly 12,000 lunch meals and another 30,000 throughout the day for service members staying on the base over Thanksgiving. Public Affairs Director Tiffany Wood says Army soldiers, family members and veterans will feast on thousands of pounds of turkey, shrimp and beef and other traditional Thanksgiving dishes.

“It’s one that our soldiers enjoy and the food service staff and the unit leaders really get pumped up for this meal. Unit leaders will actually serve the food to the soldiers that day. So, it’s a pretty special day,” says Wood. “It’s quite a meal. The food service workers – they take a lot of pride. A lot of them will tell you that you know, it’s kind of their way to give back to the soldiers to make sure they have a nice holiday.”

Wood says the event is a major undertaking.

Photo courtesy of Ft. Leonard Wood

“The planning for our Thanksgiving meal starts months in advance to ensure we get the right products in and the right quantities that we need,” says Wood. “The entire week of Thanksgiving they’re busy prepping the meal and getting ready for it.”

She says the food does not go to waste.

There are leftovers and those leftovers, it varies,” Wood says. “But they are used in additional meals throughout the day or throughout the next day.”

Fort Leonard Wood has one of the largest dining areas within the Department of Defense.

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Sgt. Ian Ives (Photo courtesy of Missouri Military Academy’s Facebook page)

A southern Missouri soldier is on the road to recovery after getting critically injured last month in Afghanistan by an explosive. Missourinet affiliate KXEO in Mexico reports Staff Sgt. Ian Ives of Cuba is reportedly alert, talking and making his own decisions.

Ives is a 2011 graduate of Missouri Military Academy in central Missouri’s Mexico.

He is being treated at Walter Reed Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland.

By Missourinet affiliate KXEO in Mexico

Before the days of email, social media and texting, getting letters from home was a way for America’s soldiers to stay in touch with their loved ones. Steve Paulsell, with Central Missouri Honor Flight, recalls one trip with a WWII veteran who grew up moving from orphanage to orphanage.

Photos courtesy of Central Missouri Honor Flight

“When mail call was called, his name was never called because he didn’t have any family writing letters to him,” says Paulsell.

The organization brings back that special “mail call” memory for veterans by secretly contacting family and friends to write letters to them. At 35,000 feet in the air on an honor flight, the northeast Missouri war hero got a special delivery.

“For the first time ever, this veteran had his name called in mail call,” Paulsell says. “We have a lot of school kids and businesses who write “Dear Veteran” letters. It was a very, very emotional time for him.”

The man kept his memories close to his heart from that trip to visit the nation’s war memorials in Washington, D.C.

“About a year-and-a-half later, we got a call from a nurse up in Hannibal to let us know that this veteran had passed away and the last three days of his life, he was at her ICU at the hospital,” says Paulsell. “She said, “For the last three days he did nothing but talk about his honor flight – how meaningful that was to him.’ And she said, ‘When he passed away, he had those letters in his hand.’”

Paulsell has story after story of veterans walking away from honor flights with life-changing experiences and memories for life. Veterans wishing to sign up for an honor flight can click here.

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A group of 108 veterans from World War Two and the Korean and Vietnam Wars are aboard an honor flight today visiting Washington, D.C. Steve Paulsell, the flight director for Central Missouri Honor Flight, recalls many stories throughout the years about the power these journeys have on veterans. He says for many veterans, the trip is about healing.

Photo courtesy of Central Missouri Honor Flight

“One veteran took his combat boots to the wall, sat them at the wall and walked away,” says Paulsell. “Later he said, ‘I always swore if I ever got the chance to go to the Vietnam Wall, I’d take these boots up there and leave all the anger, the mad, the regret, the sadness and the pain in those boots and walk away a new man.’ He said, ‘That’s what happened that day.’”

Paulsell says many soldiers hold tokens from their military days close to their hearts.

“I think that’s why they carry the dollar bills and keep the boots and all that,” says Paulsell. “Although combat is a terrible time, there is a very special meaning to the relationships that they built there that they’ve never experienced again.”

Central Missouri Honor Flight is accepting applications for its 2020 trips. Paulsell says Missouri has hundreds, if not thousands, of Vietnam War veterans who should fill out applications to get on an honor flight.

Click here for more information about the honor flights.

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