By By MARCIA STEFFENS / Dowagiac Daily News
CASSOPOLIS – Art Myers' face reflects back the horror of Dec. 7, 1941, as he recalls nearing the channel when that day suddenly went very wrong.
Myers enlisted at 17, a year before World War II started that December day for American troops.
He was on the destroyer USS Litchfield and they were on their way into Pearl Harbor the morning of Dec. 7.
Afraid they would be trapped like so many of the other ships, they backed out and circled around, saving the ship.
"That day never goes past me," he said. "We were confused and didn't have time to be scared. I don't know if it affected me, but you never forget."
Besides Pearl Harbor, Myers was stationed at Midway for 13 months, "a place without any women and only sea gulls. I got tired of listening to them."
Along with being on a destroyer and a destroyer escort, Myers proudly wears a hat of the USS Swordfish 55-193.
Though he was scared at first, by the "shakes and hearing the water running through the pipes," the submarine was his favorite.
He would remain in the Navy for a full 10 years before being medically discharged. "I loved the Navy, I would have stayed," he said.
"A mosquito would do to me what the whole Japanese army couldn't," he added. The bite in the swamps of the Philippines were what brought him back to Cassopolis.
Myers, who turned 83 on Nov. 2, was born in Niles and raised in Cassopolis.
He met his first wife on New Year's Eve, as a young Navy man, when the girl he called was busy, but fixed him up with a friend.
"I have been married three times," he said. His wife Mae works at Woodlands and they live on Darwin in town.
Back here he was the owner of Myers' Tree Service. A drop from a tree continues to bring him pain. "I died three times on the operating table," he added.
From his two sons he said he has lots of great-grandchildren, most of whom want his Black Forest wood cane, which he carved himself.
He brags he knows everyone in town, or "if I don't know them, then their relatives. My mother's grandfather built these stores."
After downing four cups of coffee at Bonnie and Clydes, he ordered a Carbon waffle at Broadway Cafe, a place he is known and loved.
"I knew the Carbon family from Buchanan," he said, asking the waitress to be sure and bring butter.
He wishes he could return to Pearl Harbor, but at his age, he doubts that will happen. He would like to see the memorial to those whom he knew who died.