Number of WWII vets shrinking

As of about Dec. 1, 2015, there were only an estimated 855,000 World War II veterans still alive. At 911/2, I consider myself to be one of the fortunate Greatest Generation survivors above the ground rather than under it.

There were 16,000,000 of us who served in World War II. I thought of it as a two-theater of action global conflict: the European Theater and Asiatic-Pacific Theater.

I served for 33 months in the U.S. Navy, half of it in combat in the Asiatic-Pacific participating in two D-Day invasions, Lingayen Gulf in the Philippine Islands and Okinawa. Our ship, the U.S.S. LST 582, traveled many thousands of miles. We visited many ports of call in the hot and humid Pacific to snow covered Mount Fuji In Tokyo, Japan, at the end of the war.

Indelibly etched in my mind are places like two shakedown cruises on U.S.S. LST 494 and U.S.S. LST 582 down the Mississippi River from Evansville, Ind., shipyards to New Orleans, La. Going through the Panama Canal from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean was remarkable. Arriving at Pearl Harbor in October of 1944 to pick up a contingent of U.S. Marines for deployment to combat was memorable.

World War II veterans are dying at the rate of 492 per day. In five years we will be extinct like the Civil War Veterans.

I was proud to have served my country, a once in a lifetime experience. I entered the U.S. Navy still age 18 and was honorably discharged at age 21. My odyssey was a 24/7 round the clock no overtime pay job.

Michael J. Lacivita is a Youngstown retiree and member of the Ohio Senior Citizens Hall of Fame and the Ohio Veterans Hall of Fame.