NEWBURGH – A time-honored tradition continued along the Newburgh waterfront Sunday as veterans from around Orange County gathered to pay tribute to the fallen servicemembers of Pearl Harbor.
This year marked the 84th anniversary of Japan’s surprise attack on American forces in Hawaii on December 7 – sparking the nation’s entrance into World War II.
David McTamaney, quartermaster for VFW Post #973 in Newburgh, said veterans have been paying tribute at the location for as long as he can remember and that it’s a fitting way to honor the men and women who sacrificed so much during that time in history.
“It makes me think of all those – World War I, Korea, Vietnam and others. As a child I was trying to understand that because I had neighbors who had been in the wars and I had heard them talking about it and I wanted to know more,” McTamaney said. “I would ask my parents, and they would tell me to go to the library and get a book. And you would read in the books and they had such tremendous numbers. When they talked about 400,000 Americans being killed, I couldn’t understand that. When I got to break it down to a local level, that’s when I really got to understand it.”
“Today when I talk about Robert O’Sherman of Middletown being killed down at Hickam Field, I can see that man in my mind’s eye, maintaining a machine gun, trying to shoot down a Japanese plane, hit with shrapnel, and killed on the spot,” he recounted. “It makes it real for me, rather than just names.”
Over the years, McTamaney said he learned the names of servicemembers from Orange County, and it helped him develop a mental image of those individuals fighting in battle. Doing that has made the experience real for him as opposed to just reading a name on a page.
“I wanted to bring them alive in some way. Like Woody Guthrie said it in that song, ‘Tell me their names.’ We don’t have enough time to read everyone’s name today. But on Memorial Day we go to the Orange County Memorial in Newburgh and read everyone’s name because we don’t want to forget them. They gave what they never expected to give which is the ultimate sacrifice.”
McTamaney, a Vietnam War veteran, said it’s poignant to have the December 7th ceremony along the waterfront because it’s a perfect way to honor the fallen of Pearl Harbor. Just like years past, the ceremony included songs from the Newburgh Free Academy High School Band and flowers being tossed into the Hudson River by veterans hailing from Newburgh, New Windsor and other parts of Orange County.
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