Bob Carson

By Mary Kay Gominger

"Sixty five years goes by in a blink of the eye," said AFRH resident Bob Carson. "I was there, at Pearl Harbor, 65 years ago. It was an eye-opening event. We cannot forget the lessons we learned…there's an enemy out there, always, that would like to do harm to this country. We can never let our guard down. Sometimes I think we forgot that important lesson."

Bob Carson is one of a handful of Pearl Harbor veterans that reside at the AFRH. He remembers the day Pearl Harbor was bombed very clearly. Like many of the troops in Hawaii that fateful morning, he was eating a hearty breakfast of steak and eggs onboard the USS Curtis, tied off of Pearl City between two mooring buoys.

"We heard an explosion and went topside to see what I thought was a plane crash," said Carson. "I immediately went to man my station on the bridge and I had a perfect view of everything that was happening. Japanese planes were coming from all directions, spraying gunfire everywhere. We did what we were trained to do. There was no time to think about anything but manning the guns and fighting back. And that's what we did. We shot down six planes that morning. One of them crashed onboard deck of our ship. Another explosion came from behind me. It all happened so fast," Bob recalls.

The damage done to the USS Curtis was extensive but the ship was not completely destroyed and later, returned to San Francisco for repairs. Bob was transferred to another ship and spent the next 20 years in the Navy on various ships and in various jobs until he retired after achieving the rank of CWO2.

Bob said he read about the AFRH in Shift Colors in the fall of 2002 and after a few visits to the Gulfport home, decided the next spring to join his comrades in Gulfport. He was evacuated to Washington with his fellow Gulfport residents last summer and is waiting for the time he can return to the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

This year on Dec. 7, like every other year since 1941, Bob will think about that fateful morning. He will remember his comrades that sacrificed their lives and didn't come home…he will remember the lessons we should never forget. He survived Pearl Harbor and he wants future generations to not forget those lessons.