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BANGOR – On a bridge spanning the Kenduskeag Stream, about 100 people paid tribute at noon Saturday to the people who lost their lives in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on Dec. 7, 1941.
An hour later, about 50 other people gathered a half-mile away to warn of the consequences of going to war again.
On the 61st anniversary of the sneak attack that drew the United States into World War II, groups with very different missions seemed to focus on a similar theme: how to best prepare and protect the nation and its people as the United States again stands on the threshold of war.
Both groups honored war dead but expressed decidedly different opinions about how the country should conduct itself in the post-Sept. 11 era.
The 100 or so veterans, disabled veterans and others who appeared at the downtown bridge amid a chilly wind to commemorate the Pearl Harbor anniversary focused on a need for defense preparedness. Gov.-elect John Baldacci was on hand, stressing what he said was the importance of Maine becoming involved in the beefed-up homeland security effort.
“We need to be prepared, always on guard, to make sure our liberties are protected,” Baldacci told the noontime gathering. He pledged to “make sure our borders, parks and airports are protected.”
Across town, at Davenport Park off Main and Cedar streets, Mike Howard, a University of Maine professor and member of the Bangor-based Peace and Justice Center, decried the “imperialistic” motives he said were behind the nation’s “rush to war” with Iraq.
On the footbridge over the Kenduskeag Stream, Maj. Gen. Joseph Tinkham, Maine’s top military official, urged people to see the current war on terrorism through to its end to prevent more sneak attacks like those that occurred at Pearl Harbor in 1941 and at the Pentagon and World Trade Center in 2001.
“With the horrible attacks of Sept. 11 so vivid, Dec. 7 begins to fade,” said Tinkham.
It didn’t appear to fade in Bangor’s collective memory, as peace activists waited for the noontime observance to end before starting theirs. Various political dignitaries and representatives from U.S. Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins were absent from the peace rally, but made speeches at the veterans’ remembrance ceremony.
Plenty of cars honked on upper Main Street during the 40-minute anti-war observance that was followed by a sidewalk march to the Peace and Justice Center on Park Street hill.
Silence surrounded the veterans’ ceremony, punctuated only by the cracking of rifles in a three-round salute to war dead by the Bangor High School Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps.
The Bangor High School band lined up on the bridge to play the national anthem.
Veterans such as Marshall Strout, 70, of Brewer and Frank Yager, 76, of Ellsworth saluted as Bangor trumpeter Hal Wheeler played taps after the gun salute.
At Davenport Park, Scottish bagpipes sounded. People shouted out support as a veteran, a homeless shelter board member and a women’s shelter director, among others, urged a peaceful resolution to the U.S. conflict with Iraq and urged a reallocation of assets to the needs of the homeless and vulnerable populations at home.
“We can honor those who died no better than by exercising those rights for which they fought,” Howard told the group at Davenport Park. He forecast a bloody, protracted battle if war against Iraq occurs and urged “diplomatic resolution of conflicts – for example, to let the weapons inspectors do their work – and to abide by international treaties.”
The names of Pearl Harbor survivors in Maine were read at the noontime ceremony. They are:
Joe Adje, Canaan; Joseph Biron and George Mitchell, Bar Harbor; Don Forbes, Old Town; Mike Iverson, Dave Lincoln and John Winkin, Bangor; Richard L. Jones Jr. and Charles White, East Holden; Bob Manchester, Stockton Springs; Harry Mathieson and Louis Mathieson, Owls Head; William McKinley, Brooksville; Harris McLean, Sullivan; Roger Moran, Thorndike; Paul Richardson, Eastport; Arthur Sanderson, Unity; Gene Shute, Belfast; Harry Taggart, Limestone; Clayton Thomas, North Whitefield; Mike Tiberio, Belfast; Frank Webber Sr., Newport; and Walter Wisniswelski, Morrill.
Compilers said the list, compiled by Pine Tree Chapter No. 1 of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association, was as up-to-date as possible. Raymond Lupo, past state commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, said there are probably other Pearl Harbor survivors in Maine.
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