As you meander along the winding two lane toward Logan, the halfway point is somewhere near the town of Midkiff. That's where Wetzel Sanders was born 86 years ago. His hair isn't quite the same color as it used to be, and his face no longer resembles that young man in uniform from 68 years past. But his spirit and love of America are a living testament to a time when he proudly served his country.

"During my 86 years of living, I have yet to witness the devastation and loss of life that I endured when I was 18," said Sanders. "That was the year I celebrated my birthday in Hawaii; four months before the attack on Pearl Harbor."

On Saturday night, the 6th of December 1941, Army private Sanders had the additional duty of picking up soldiers from the local jail who were too inebriated to safely navigate their way back to base.

"By the time I got them all back in the barracks, it was already early Sunday morning," said Sanders, who was looking forward to sleeping late that day.

His voice breaks with obvious emotion when he speaks of those men he had just brought back to the barracks. Many of them were killed in their sleep.

"When the Japanese planes first started strafing our barracks on Sunday morning, there was complete pandemonium," said Sanders, who initially thought the attack was a military training exercise gone bad.

Sanders was assigned to the 251st Coast Artillery (Anti Aircraft) Regiment at Fort Malakole on Hawaii. When the attack started, those lucky enough to make it out of the barracks set up temporary battle stations near the Navy hospital. They were armed with various large caliber anti-aircraft machine guns. Other groups went to locations where they were directed. Sanders said he later counted seven bullet holes in the truck he was driving that morning, none of which he noticed at the time.

"When we saw we were going to run out of ammunition, some men were dispatched to the ammo storage facility. It was later discovered that the supply sergeant in charge of ammunition was on weekend leave. So when they reached the weapons room, the door had to be chopped down to gain access to the ammo," he said. "The planes were coming over so low you could see their insolent-looking smile as they passed. We really relied on those tracer bullets to make every shot count. Once we got the gun sights lined up on one of their planes, we kept firing until the plane crashed or went out of range."

Sanders said that the death and destruction of buildings, planes, ships, property and equipment was something he wishes he could erase from his mind, but it never goes away.

"We spent days pulling the dead from the harbor. Their mutilated bodies were covered completely in oil and diesel fuel. The sky stayed black with greasy dark smoke that lasted for days," he said. "The stench of death lingered everywhere. Bodies were just stacked like so many wooden logs waiting to be identified and taken to a makeshift morgue. Hickam Field Air Base suffered extensive damage, but not nearly as badly as Ford Naval Air Base located close by. That area was pretty much destroyed completely. They bombed the barracks, runway, and aircraft hangars. Many were just at the mercy of strafing attacks from the Japanese fighters. Body parts were everywhere, some looked as though they had just been cut in half by gun fire."

Sanders was honorably discharged from the U.S. Army in 1945. One year later. he decided to again enlist in the military. This time it was the U.S. Marines. He served until 1949, when he was again honorably discharged.

Wetzel Sanders returned to Pearl Harbor for the 60th anniversary. His emotions were flooded with painful memories as he stood with his comrades over the USS Arizona with the bones of over 1,000 veterans still entombed under his feet.

According to Sanders, there are less than 25 living veterans from West Virginia who were there on that Sunday morning during the 7th of December of 1941. A day that President Franklin D. Roosevelt said would live in infamy.

The weather in Hawaii on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, started out to be just another typical sunny warm peaceful morning -- much like a September morning in New York City 60 years later.

Clyde Beal is a freelance writer living in Huntington. If you have a story to share, write him at archie350@verizon.net.

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Wetzel Sanders