Pearl Harbor veteran who now lives in Sonoma County shares his story

The stories about 75th anniversary Pearl Harbor observances in Santa Rosa and Lakeport, each attended by a lone, 90-something veteran of the attack, brought a phone call from Anne McKernan of Healdsburg:

Would we care to know about her father, an Annapolis grad who was on Oahu that day? A man who lost a brother to the war and who made the Navy his career, retiring as a commander?

Yes, please. Anne put me in touch with her dad, Robert Lee Border. He’s 98 and came to Sonoma County from Vegas after his wife, Mary, died in 2007.

The morning Pearl Harbor was attacked, Bob said straight-up, “I was home in bed.”

He was an ensign assigned to the battleship Tennessee. He awoke Dec. 7, 1941, in the Waikiki apartment he shared with Mary.

Bob is direct about the fact that when he reached the Tennessee and took in the panorama of horror, the attack was over. He soon realized his ship was largely spared because the two bombs that hit it struck heavy armor, and incoming torpedoes were blocked by the ravaged adjacent battleship, the West Virginia.

“Very eager to get into combat,” Bob became a dive-bomber pilot and attacked Japanese installations throughout the South Pacific, his efforts earning him the Distinguished Flying Cross. He learned late in 1942 that his brother, Karl, a fellow Naval Academy graduate and dive-bomber pilot, was killed as he tried to pull a rear gunner from a crash-landed Douglas SBD Dauntless.

Bob said he’s astonished that it’s been 75 years since the war began, and that he still thinks about it as much as he does.

“I can’t help it,” he said.

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THINK SMALL: This makes year two that the Council on Aging will raise money for Meals on Wheels in Sonoma County by raffling a nice, new, teeny, tiny house.

The holder of the winning ticket will receive a 190-square-foot habitation hand-built by SunWest Tiny Homes. Imagine what you might do with a house that size.

Peek at councilonaging.com and you’ll see that raffle tickets are $75 each, three for $200, until Jan. 1, when the prices go up. The drawing is on Slurpee Day, July 11.

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GLADYS IS MISSED at Christmas Unlimited, the unfathomably wonderful gift-a-thon for low-income children that’s hosted by the Welfare League members who run a landmark thrift store in Santa Rosa’s Railroad Square.

No one participated in more of the holiday programs, which each year grant new clothing and toys and books to a couple thousand kids, than Gladys Wing. When she died weeks ago at 106, the former Montgomery Village clothing shop owner had been a stalwart of the Welfare League for more than 55 years.

“She loved Christmas Unlimited so much,” said another pillar of the charitable group, Earlene Reichert.

Gifts are flying and people are smiling at the Welfare League store this week, but it’s clear something is amiss. That Gladys was something; a granddaughter once recalled her sharing that she was exasperated all day long one day because she couldn’t find her dentures, and upon undressing that night found them in her bra.

Such stories will be the wings to the memorial for Gladys at ?11 a.m. Saturday at Daniels Chapel of the Roses.

Chris Smith is at 707-521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.