Ray Chavez credits good diet and regular workouts at the gym.
Usually the action at Ray Chavez’s gymnasium is all business. But on Tuesday, there were cookies, balloons and a birthday song at the conclusion of his half-hour workout.
This week, America’s oldest surviving Pearl Harbor veteran turns 104, and Tuesday’s gym visit was a mere warmup for the Poway man’s big day on Thursday.
Last December, just seven veterans — including Chavez — were healthy enough to attend the 74th annual services aboard the USS Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor. The next eldest was Colorado resident James Downing, now 102. Until last summer, various sources credited Downing as the oldest Pearl Harbor vet. But when he read a story online about Chavez, he happily surrendered the title and flew to San Diego to meet Chavez in July.
Both men hope to attend the 75th annual services next winter, where veterans groups are hoping to attract as many as 200 survivors on what will surely be, for most, their last opportunity to visit.
Chavez said he loves traveling back to Hawaii to see his old friends and to honor those who died, but he didn’t always feel that way. For more than four decades, he couldn’t face going back to relive the memories of that fateful day. But when the 50th anniversary arrived in 1991, he decided it was finally time to return.
ht/ reddecaesari
God bless him.
BACON IN THE MORNING, WHISKEY AT NIGHT, BRING ON THE NEXT YEAR, FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT!
SCREW GOV’T STUDIES!
He was partly responsible for the first strike for the U.S. in WW2 when his ship reported seeing the periscope of that jap midget-sub.
He really doesn’t look bad for 104.