Monday was a cold and wet night for a Pearl Harbor commemoration at the WWII Memorial on the National Mall.
But Richard Young can take it. After all, the 94-year-old has survived worse, much worse.
"It seemed to me, at that point, that my life was going to be pretty short," said Young.
That's a natural thought when bombs are raining down on you, as they were on a 19-year-old Young and his older brother.
Both were stationed aboard the USS Worden, at port in Pearl Harbor when Japanese bombers attacked on the morning of December 7, 1941.
Within two hours of the last Japanese bomb drop, the USS Worden hit the open sea, headed for WWII's Pacific Theater.
With a world war behind him, Young charted a new course. He got married, raised a family and entered the ministry. But he always stayed close with his fellow survivors.
Using some words of a bygone era, Young describes an annual ritual.
"I have a friend in West Virginia who calls. My brother used to call and say, 'wake up, the Japs are attacking' and now he's taken the place of that and my friend in West Virginia calls every December on the 7th," said Young.
And on that rare occasion, when he thinks about the attack that started a war, he thinks about it with some peace.
"There's no more animosity in my feelings," Young said. "But still when I think about it, I think it was a mean trick that they played on us."
While it is a day that President Franklin Roosevelt declared will live in infamy, Young admits, like just about everything else, it begins to fade from memory.
"Well that's been 75 years, it kind of fades into the past," said Young.
Which is why we remember as a country.
"It's good to know that people still remember this, but I hope not with malice, but from the lessons that we learned," said Young.
