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{"source_url": "https://www.latimes.com", "url": "https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-12-30/joe-walsh-pearl-harbor-veteran-dead", "title": "100-year-old Pearl Harbor veteran Joe Walsh dies", "top_image": "https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/1a12834/2147483647/strip/true/crop/2048x1075+0+115/resize/1200x630!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fe3%2F44%2F4277d27634dba664550f137cf76b%2Fsd-pearl-harbor-commemorated-in-oceanside-2016-001", "meta_img": "https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/1a12834/2147483647/strip/true/crop/2048x1075+0+115/resize/1200x630!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fe3%2F44%2F4277d27634dba664550f137cf76b%2Fsd-pearl-harbor-commemorated-in-oceanside-2016-001", "images": ["https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/1a12834/2147483647/strip/true/crop/2048x1075+0+115/resize/1200x630!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fe3%2F44%2F4277d27634dba664550f137cf76b%2Fsd-pearl-harbor-commemorated-in-oceanside-2016-001", "https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/0e/c6/b86a8b4b43a793259deb28a32a56/latlogoinverse.svg", "https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/719adc0/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1622x912+0+0/resize/840x472!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fe2%2Fb4%2F3b4458ea348b86245579febed1ec%2Fsd-1552945301-lpjvbmgd5i-snap-image", "data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==", "https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/9fb2098/2147483647/strip/true/crop/2048x1305+0+0/resize/840x535!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fe3%2F44%2F4277d27634dba664550f137cf76b%2Fsd-pearl-harbor-commemorated-in-oceanside-2016-001", "https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/b9/f5/1c9278c94a439e28f5150c679d6f/logo-full-black.svg", "https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/8383738/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1000x562+0+0/resize/840x472!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fbc%2Fb3%2F86071a1d5e50766503580038c294%2Fsd-1552956140-8jx69qq54r-snap-image", "https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/2a52309/2147483647/strip/true/crop/800x800+0+0/resize/100x100!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Ff4%2F36%2F5cb995992b1ff5d5ce5645b778b3%2Fimg-57e0194e-turbine-sdut-pam-kragen"], "movies": [], "text": "Back in 1987, veteran Joe Walsh co-founded the north San Diego County chapter of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Assn. because he believed the men he served with on that fateful day of Dec. 7, 1941, \u201cdeserved to be remembered.\u201d\n\nNow, respects are being paid to Walsh, who died Dec. 21 after a brief illness at the Pacifica Senior Living complex in Vista. He was 100 years old.\n\nWalsh was the last surviving active member of the association\u2019s Chapter 31, following the death in February of chapter co-founder John Quier, 98, of Fallbrook.\n\nAs the chapter\u2019s longtime president, Walsh organized Pearl Harbor Memorial Day services each Dec. 7 at Oceanside Harbor. Over the years, he never missed a service, including one held earlier this month.\n\nAdvertisement\n\n\u201cI think he was holding on for this year\u2019s service,\u201d said daughter Joan Culver of Fallbrook.\"It meant a lot to him.\u201d\n\nAt his 100th birthday party in March, Walsh said his memories of that morning 78 years ago were still razor-sharp.\n\n\u201cYou don\u2019t forget something like that,\u201d he said.\n\nMarine Gunnery Sgt. Joe Walsh in Guam in 1945, during World War II. (Courtesy photo)\n\nAdvertisement\n\nThen a Marine in the 3rd Defense Battalion, Walsh was at a color guard ceremony in the Pearl Harbor Navy Yard when the Japanese attack began at 7:55 a.m. He and his fellow Marines manned three anti-aircraft guns, trying to shoot down the invading planes before they could sink the American battleships near the harbor\u2019s entrance.\n\n\u201cI didn\u2019t have time to get scared,\u201d he recalled. \u201cYou don\u2019t think about it. You did what you were told to do. You manned your gun and tried to get anyone you could.\u201d\n\nA few weeks after the attack, Walsh was shipped to the desolate Johnston Atoll in the South Pacific to build air defenses. Then, after a brief stint in Navy flight school, he spent the rest of the war in the Marine Corps\u2019 VMO-8 observation squadron, according to a biography written by local World War II historian Linda Dudik.\n\nWalsh served nine years in the Marines, retiring at the rank of gunnery sergeant. During the Korean War, he was called back to active duty to serve as a drill sergeant major at Marine Corps Air Station El Toro, Culver said.\n\nAlthough he was proud to have served his country, Walsh never glamorized his military experiences, and he was grateful that his sons never had to fight in a war. He found those years challenging and often harsh, especially the severe deprivation he suffered on Johnston Atoll.\n\n\u201cIt was pretty rough,\u201d he said last spring. \u201cAll I could think of was how to get the hell out.\u201d\n\nA native of East Orange, N.J., Walsh joined the Marines in 1938 not for the adventure but for the steady income it would provide. It was the Great Depression, and jobs were scarce. Walsh earned $19 a week in the Marines and sent $10 from every paycheck home to his mom, who raised him and his siblings alone after his father abandoned the family when Joe was 5, Culver said.\n\nWalsh met his future wife, LaVonne \u201cBea\u201d Phaneuf, at the wedding of a fellow Marine in 1945. That marriage didn\u2019t last, but the Walshes\u2019 union, sealed in 1946, endured for 73 years and produced six children. Bea was also a Marine veteran, having served in the Aviation Women\u2019s Reserve Squadron 21 at Brown Field in Quantico, Va. She was one of just 23,000 women who enlisted during World War II.\n\nAdvertisement\n\nDudik said Friday she would visit the Walshes every Saturday at Pacifica, and she and Culver would push the couple around in wheelchairs side by side. \u201cThey were a lovely couple. They held hands when we wheeled them down wide hallways,\u201d Dudik said.\n\nU.S. Rep. Mike Levin holds the congressional record recognizing married Marine veterans LaVonne \u201cBea\u201d Walsh, 95, and Joe Walsh, 100, on Joe\u2019s 100th birthday in March. (U.S. Marine Corps)\n\nFor decades after he left the military, Walsh never shared his war memories with his family. That changed in the mid-1980s when he was invited to speak to students at a San Diego County school and was shocked to discover the children had never heard of the Pearl Harbor attack, Culver said.\n\nThat led to the founding of Chapter 31 and the annual memorials at Oceanside Harbor\u2019s small-craft fishing pier. In 2006, working with his wife and Quier, Walsh successfully campaigned to have the city install a stone Pearl Harbor memorial monument by the pier.\n\n\u201cThe guys who were over there who didn\u2019t make it back deserved to be remembered,\u201d Walsh said in March. \u201cWe didn\u2019t want to forget any of them.\u201d\n\nAt its peak in the 1990s, Chapter 31 had 130 members. That count gradually dwindled in recent years as members died. At this month\u2019s Pearl Harbor Memorial Day ceremony in Oceanside, the only two Pearl Harbor veterans in attendance were Walsh and Oceanside resident George Coburn, 99, who served on the USS Oklahoma, which was sunk by a torpedo during the attack.\n\nAfter World War II, Walsh returned to New Jersey, where he earned a business degree at Seton Hall University. Except for his Korean War years in El Toro, he spent the rest of his career working for Prentice Hall Publishing. From his home in Encinitas, he traveled by car throughout the Southwest selling legal and tax books to judges, lawyers and CPAs. He retired in 1986 at age 67 and moved with Bea to Fallbrook, where the couple lived for nearly 30 years before moving to Pacifica Senior Living a few years ago.\n\nWalsh is survived by his wife and their six children: Kate Walsh of San Diego; Joan Culver of Fallbrook; Patrick Walsh of Arizona; Mary Adams of Portola Valley; Thomas Walsh of Oregon; and Christopher Walsh of Encinitas; as well as many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.\n\nWalsh\u2019s ashes will be interred in a brief graveside service at 12:30 p.m. Jan. 27 at Miramar National Cemetery in San Diego. Culver said his tombstone would be engraved with the words \u201cPrince of a Fellow,\u201d the beloved and fitting nickname by which her father was known among family and friends since his boyhood days.", "keywords": [], "meta_keywords": [""], "tags": ["Things to Do"], "authors": ["Pam Kragen Is A Feature Writer Who Specializes In Writing Human Interest", "Dining", "Theater", "Opera Stories. She Joined The San Diego Union-Tribune Staff In October After Years At The North County Times", "Where She Served As The Arts", "Features Editor", "As Well As The Paper S Longtime Arts Writer", "Theater Opera Critic. She Is The President", "Co-Founder Of The San Diego Theatre Critics Circle. She Holds A Bachelor Of Arts Degree In Journalism San Diego State University", "Completed Fellowships In Theater Criticism At The University Of Southern California"], "publish_date": "Mon Dec 30 00:00:00 2019", "summary": "", "article_html": "", "meta_description": "The 100-year-old veteran of the Marines died Dec. 21 at a retirement community in the San Diego area.", "meta_lang": "en", "meta_favicon": "/apple-touch-icon.png", "meta_data": {"og": {"title": "100-year-old Pearl Harbor veteran Joe Walsh dies", "url": "https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-12-30/joe-walsh-pearl-harbor-veteran-dead", "image": {"identifier": "https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/1a12834/2147483647/strip/true/crop/2048x1075+0+115/resize/1200x630!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fe3%2F44%2F4277d27634dba664550f137cf76b%2Fsd-pearl-harbor-commemorated-in-oceanside-2016-001", "url": "https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/1a12834/2147483647/strip/true/crop/2048x1075+0+115/resize/1200x630!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fe3%2F44%2F4277d27634dba664550f137cf76b%2Fsd-pearl-harbor-commemorated-in-oceanside-2016-001", "width": 1200, "height": 630, "type": "image/jpeg", "alt": "Pearl Harbor commemorated in Oceanside"}, "description": "The 100-year-old veteran of the Marines died Dec. 21 at a retirement community in the San Diego area.", "site_name": "Los Angeles Times", "type": "article"}, "article": {"author": "https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sdut-pam-kragen-staff.html", "content_tier": "metered", "published_time": "2019-12-30T19:00:37.052", "opinion": "false", "section": "California"}, "twitter": {"card": "summary_large_image", "creator": "@@pamkragen", "description": "The 100-year-old veteran of the Marines died Dec. 21 at a retirement community in the San Diego area.", "image": {"identifier": "https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/2a6eb0c/2147483647/strip/true/crop/2048x1152+0+77/resize/1200x675!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fe3%2F44%2F4277d27634dba664550f137cf76b%2Fsd-pearl-harbor-commemorated-in-oceanside-2016-001", "alt": "Pearl Harbor commemorated in Oceanside"}, "site": "@latimes", "title": "100-year-old Pearl Harbor veteran Joe Walsh dies"}, "fb": {"app_id": 119932621434123, "pages": 5863113009, "profile_id": "UTNorthCounty"}, "viewport": "width=device-width, initial-scale=1, maximum-scale=5", "description": "The 100-year-old veteran of the Marines died Dec. 21 at a retirement community in the San Diego area.", "brightspot.contentId": "0000016f-5817-d233-abef-dbf7748f0000", "brightspot.cached": "false"}, "canonical_link": "https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/communities/north-county/vista/story/2019-12-28/1919-2019-joe-walsh-one-of-regions-last-surviving-pearl-harbor-veterans-has-died"} |
