Gary sinise salutes america’s pearl harbor heroes

In January, the Gary Sinise Foundation was honored to be able to host Joe as part of our Soaring Valor Program. Although he was confined to a wheelchair, Joe was lifted aboard an Amtrak

train in Los Angeles for a journey to New Orleans, home of the National World War II Museum. Fittingly, he was saluted and cheered all the way. He was accompanied by his family—his daughter

Belinda Mastrangelo, 68, granddaughters and great-grandson, Mathias, aged 5. Thanks to the American people who donate to Gary Sinise Foundation to support our Soaring Valor trips to the

museum, and Amtrak who provided the transportation, they had a chance to grow a little bit closer right at the end of Joe’s life. “I am just so grateful my great-grandson could be here and

experience all this with me,” Joe commented. “This he’ll remember his entire life. From the bottom of my heart, I want to thank everyone involved. You brought back so many old memories and

created new ones for my family.” At every whistle stop along the way, decorations were put up in his honor, and local residents gathered on the platform to cheer the nation’s oldest living

Pearl Harbor survivor, waving back to them from his private room. “When we arrived in New Orleans Sunday night, there was a big American flag all lit up and a crowd of people waiting to

greet dad,” Belinda said. “That train trip was the beginning of many tears and emotions we would share throughout the week.” On the day of the Pearl Harbor attack, Joe remembered being shot

at by a machine gun and being 50 feet from a bomb that landed but didn't detonate. "Luckily nothing happened to me, but I came that close," he recalled. "First with the

bomb and then with the machine gun.” In 2018, I was delighted to be asked by Tim Gray, founder of the WWII Foundation, to narrate his documentary “Lifeline: Pearl Harbor's Unknown

Hero,” a film about Joe George, a boatswain's mate second class, who disobeyed an order to cut the line between the USS Vestal, a maintenance ship, and the USS Arizona during the Pearl

Harbor attack.