Patriotism, history at OCC

Lt. Col. Andrew Weniger and his company were sitting on the fenders of a fleet of Army trucks when they heard approaching aircraft. They assumed it was the arrival of the B-17 bombers they were expecting. It wasn’t.

“That was when all heck broke loose,” Weniger said.

As he scrambled for safety, dodging bombs and bullets, his only thought was, “God, get me through this and I’ll never do anything bad again.”

Weniger, 84 and now retired, told his Pearl Harbor story Thursday to about 300 students, staff and community members who assembled at Orange Coast College to commemorate the Japanese attack on the U.S. Naval base 65 years ago.

Several children, aged 5 and up, of the Orange County home-schooling network Aslan Academy came for a lesson in U.S. history. World War II veterans came to reflect on personal experiences. OCC students came to listen and learn. And OCC history professor Susan Smith led the audience in “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

The keynote speaker was George Key, great-great-grandson of Francis Scott Key, who wrote the words to the national anthem. Key recalled the words of Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto (“We have awakened a sleeping giant.”) and President Franklin D. Roosevelt (“Always we will remember the character of the onslaught against us.”) to emphasize the gravity of the Dec. 7, 1941, attacks. Like all those involved Thursday, he stressed the importance of holding memorials to remember the past.

“We have to remind people, in our delicate way, that the loss of life for somebody preserving your own freedom is important and must be remembered,” Key said.

To help preserve the memory of Pearl Harbor on campus, U.S. history professor Denis Jana presented an American flag that flew over the battleship Arizona memorial to the college’s Social and Behavioral Sciences division as “tangible evidence of the attack.”

“My job is to keep history alive, as a professor,” Jana said. “I teach U.S. history so it will never be forgotten and so that the new generation will remember Pearl Harbor and remember 9/11, the Pearl Harbor of their generation.”

Following the flag presentation, Key led participants in the Pledge of Allegiance beneath the flag in the campus quad.