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Burdetta Moore

By VANESSA DE LA TORRE
Published December 7, 2005


[Times photo: Scott Keeler]
Remembering Pearl Harbor
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Remembering WWII

BURDETTA MOORE, 64, Largo, was born March 22, 1941, in Canton, Ohio. She moved here from Columbus, Ohio, a year and a half ago after retiring from jobs working in a Bath and Body warehouse and babysitting in her home. Her memory of Pearl Harbor involves her late father, Alfred Shroyer.

My father was a Marine when it happened. He never did talk much about (World War II), because all his friends had died there and he left my mother and me. My mother was 17. He was 19. He went to the war and he was in Iwo Jima. He said it was a tough life to pay for service, but he had to serve.

He talked more to my nephew about it, because he's serving in the Marines now, than he did to his own family. He just kind of closed up because of the terrible things that happened there.

He left his wife, his daughter. ... I was just a baby.

I think it was a tough war and, you know, when I hear things about a war like that, I feel sorry for all the people who have to go serve. But that's what they all want to do: Serve their country. No matter how many times you have to go. My daughter's in the Air Force, my husband was in the Air Force, my brother was in the Navy and my two nephews are in the Marines.

I have a wall just for all the people who served in the military in my family. We call it the Wall of Honor. My dad is there.

[Last modified December 6, 2005, 12:35:03]


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