Seventy Five Years Later A Sailor Is Given His Due

Fond du Lac City Manager Joe Moore took time at the end of the City Council meeting this week to point out something he felt might have been glossed over. He says Governor Scott Walker had issued an executive order to fly flags at half-staff in honor of Machinist’s Mate 1st Class Vernon Luke who was one of 429 sailors aboard the USS Oklahoma when the Japanese planes bombed Pearl Harbor. Luke was one the sailors who lost their lives who went unidentified. But Moore says that didn’t mean efforts to identify those sailors were given up on. Technology developed over those 75 years is now allowing those like the Green Bay sailor to be identified and provide closure for families. Moore says with funeral services for former First Lady Nancy Reagan, people probably didn’t know flags were being flown at half-staff in Luke’s honor too. Luke was buried with full military honors at a cemetery in Honolulu, Hawaii on Wednesday.