Upper Marlboro Group Headed to Pearl Harbor Commemorations

A group of local youngsters will be traveling to Hawaii next week to take part in the ceremonies to commemorate the 71st anniversary of the attacks on Pearl Harbor which launched the United States into World War II. 

A unit from the Upper Marlboro chapter of the Young Marines, a youth education and service program for school-age boys and girls, will be joining Young Marines from across the nation to lay a wreath at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific on Thursday, Dec. 6. 

“Undoubtedly, the Young Marines will meet some of the survivor of that historic event of 71 years ago,” said Michael Kessler, national executive director of the Young Marines. “Those veterans are, in every sense of the words - living history, and each has a story to tell. It is an honor to attend an event that commemorates a significant turning point in our nation’s history.”

On Friday, Dec. 7, Pearl Harbor Day, the Young Marines will be leading the Pearl Harbor Memorial Parade through Honolulu, bearing the banners of the 12 big warships which were attacked on a day which then-President Franklin Roosevelt said would "live on in infamy."

Each unit traveling to Hawaii for the commemoration–there are 14 of them, including another from the Hamilton neighborhood in Baltimore–had to raise their own funds to pay for the trip.