Harold Johnson had plans to meet a girl.

He was 17 years old, a sailor deployed on the USS Oklahoma in Hawaii. That Sunday morning, Dec. 7, 1941, his whites were laid out on his bunk, ready for liberty.

It was early. He was shining his shoes.

Then an alarm went off.

It wasn’t a drill. He was sprinting to his battle station when the first torpedo hit.

On the 74th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Harold Johnson remembered that terrible day, and we remember with him. He and Harold Shimer, another local survivor, were honored during a ceremony Monday at Whidbey Island Naval Air Station.

Even with time, the terror and the horror isn’t forgotten. Neither is the sacrifice.

The solemn event featured prayers, a parade of the colors, a wreath laying and — perhaps most powerfully — the reading of both men’s stories by two young men.

Oak Harbor High School students Jared Hunt and Chase Powell, both 17, are about the age of many of the sailors attacked that day.

“He’s 17, we’re 17,” Hunt said.

“It’s moving. It’s humbling.”

Harold Shimer was 21 that day, aboard the USS Helena. The ship had come to Hawaii to bolster the fleet’s presence. Shimer worked as a storekeeper and he swapped his liberty with a buddy so his friend could go ashore. He was sleeping when the alarm woke him followed by a violent wrenching of the ship.

A torpedo tore a hole in the engine room the size of a railroad freight car. He and two other sailors were nabbed to grab ammo and send it topside.

Normally, it took a week to load four magazines. It took the men less than three hours to send up every case of 20mm ammunition. Up top, his fellows were blasting the Japanese with anti-aircraft guns, and their fire is credited with saving the USS Pennsylvania and with shooting down the enemy air wing commander.

VAQ-129 hosted the commemoration event. The squadron commander, Trevor Estes, urged listeners in his remarks to not forget the sacrifices of those before us and to have Pearl Harbor serve a greater purpose than simply a reminder of something terrible.

That greater purpose, he said, is to be prepared and vigilant.

Shirley Gilbert of Burlington was there to remember her late husband, Edward Gilbert, a Pearl Harbor survivor. When they attended the 50th anniversary ceremony together in Hawaii she couldn’t help but think about all the young people who wouldn’t go on to live their lives.

It’s important America doesn’t live in fear, but to remain vigilant, she said.