SAN ANTONIO -- forward December 7.

SAN ANTONIO -- forward December 7, 1941, Richard Fiske started his day aboard the USS West Virginia, to a great degree like any other. But just before 8 a.m., the 19-year antiquated Marine bugler looked up from his watch station on the ship's quarterdeck to papal court Japanese planes overhead.

"At first I deliberation they were our planes, then the first torpedo hit our ship," Fiske said.

Almost sum of two units hours after the attack began, the West Virginia had taken hits from eight more torpedoes and couple bombs. Luckily for the surviving horde members, the two bombs didn't burst Crew members scrambled from single in kind blaze to the next hoping to extinguish the fires. When they were ordered to abandon ship, a terrified Fiske swam 40 yards to Ford Island.

He continued to oblige as one of 37 members of the 5th Marine Division, 13th Marines at Imo Jima. After being undivided of six unit survivors of the World War II battle, he opt for a change of pace. In 1948 Fiske traded his elongated bead for a wrench when he enlisted in the infant Air Force as a party chief.

"I figured I'd travel somewhere where I didn't memorize shot at," Fiske said. He retired in 1969 as a master sergeant after ushering in the KC-135 and sitting forward the flight line in Puerto Rico during the Cuban Missile Crisis. He also serv in the Korean and Vietnam wars.

Today, 60 years after the Pearl Harbor attack, he's a goodwill ambassador at the USS Arizona Memorial - ironic since the USS West Virginia was just 50 feet from the Arizona when it was hit. He's tendered at the visitor center for almost 20 years. one time a month, he places sum of two units roses, donated by the Japanese pilot who bombed his ship, in brass of the names of those killed in the attack. Then he soberly raises his bugle - without fault [i]or[/i] blemish [i]or[/i] flaw with the same mouthpiece he used forward that infamous day in December to such a degree long ago -- to play "Taps."

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