Hundreds of World War II veterans were treated like rock stars Friday at a moving ceremony celebrating the 70th anniversary of the end of the war.
“Can I have your autograph?” a young girl asked Frank E. Pecora, a corporal with the 513th anti-aircraft artillery gun battalion in the South Pacific. Pecora, 91, didn’t know what the day had in store for him, but was eating up the attention from his wheelchair as his son, Tim Healy, grinned from a distance.
“My son says, get in the truck, we’re going somewhere,” Pecora said. “I said, ‘Where?’ and he said, ‘You’ll see.'”
Where Healy, a U.S. Marine Corps Harrier pilot from 1979-86, took his father was the base of the World War II Memorial, where thousands of people gathered to celebrate a war generation quickly running out of time. Military service runs three generations in this family: Four of Pecora’s grandchildren serve, with two grandsons who are Marine pilots and were deployed in both Iraq and Afghanistan. So Healy wasn’t going to let his father miss this day.
Overhead, scores of World War II fighters and bombers saluted the assembled veterans for their service in an hour-long and rare aerial tribute over the National Mall.
The weather held, even if it was uncooperatively hot for an early May day.
During a wreath-laying ceremony prior to the flyover, one of the veterans standing at the Freedom Wall — the tribute wall of 4,000 gold stars, one for every 100 troops killed in the war — collapsed in the heat.
In an instant, Park Ranger Marissa Richardson was at his side, supporting him and using her park ranger hat to fan him.
“I was just reacting and finding a way to cool him off until we could get some assistance, so he could continue with the ceremony that meant so much to him,” Richardson said. The veteran, who wasn’t identified, did just that, standing back up after a few moments and drinking some water.
Elizabeth Copp, 96, “could see the planes coming over,” her daughter Karen Kallio said. Mother and granddaughter kept trying to leave after the ceremony, but Elizabeth, who carried a rose and a photo of herself as a pretty, 23-year-old staff sergeant in the 169th Company, Women’s Army Corps, was in too much demand to move.
“Can we take our picture with you?” asked a string of well-wishers, and Elizabeth, who has difficulty hearing, would smile and oblige.
The significance of the day made a few well-wishers wonder why these last surviving vets — of the more than 16 million who served, fewer than 850,000 remain — didn’t warrant a visit from President Obama, who was traveling.
Of the 56 aircraft that flew in the event, a Curtiss SB2C Helldiver had to divert to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport due to mechanical problems.
The ceremony concluded with a playing of “Taps” and a missing man formation led by Rep. Sam Graves, who piloted a TBM Avenger.
For the veterans on the ground, the event was an overwhelming tribute.
“I’ll never forget it,” Pecora said.
