One of the five remaining USS Arizona battleship survivors Friday laid a wreath at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl in the first of the ceremonial events over the next week commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Don Stratton, 94, of Colorado Springs, Colo., served aboard the USS Arizona as a seaman first class and on Friday wore a purple orchid lei over a blue windbreaker emblazoned on the back with the words “U.S.S. Arizona BB-39 Survivor.”

With the help of his son, Randy, Stratton rose to present a ti leaf and white anthurium wreath in honor of his Arizona shipmates, along with James Horton, the cemetery’s director.

Stratton then offered a halting salute in front of the cemetery’s commemoration stone that reads, “In these gardens are recorded the names of Americans who gave their lives in the service of their country and whose earthly resting place is known only to God.”

The 40-minute ceremony included a five-piece Navy brass band, a 21-gun salute and the wail of taps played by a Navy bugler.

Afterward, Stratton told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that he thought about that day, Dec. 7, 1941, as he laid the wreath.

“I was thinking about my shipmates, and I was thinking about all the things that have passed since,” Stratton said. “I wanted to pay a little homage to all the people who sacrificed on that day.”

Before he was interrupted by yet another well-wisher thanking him for his service, Stratton said, “You can’t visualize what it was like. Nobody knows what goes through a person’s mind.”

Only four of the five Arizona crew members still alive made the trip to Oahu to honor the Marines and sailors who served aboard the battleship — the symbol of the war in the Pacific.

The renewed attention on Pearl Harbor and the five remaining survivors has invigorated Stratton, his son said.

Randy Stratton, 62, began listing some of the invitations his father has received as part of the 75th commemoration and said, “He’ll be at all of them.”

Jacqueline Ashwell, superintendent of the World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument, which includes the USS Arizona Memorial, called the Arizona the “symbolic epicenter of those who gave all.”

She called it “one of America’s most sacred memorials.”

Two blue flags that read “Remember Pearl Harbor” flapped in the wind as Ashwell greeted the Arizona survivors by saying, “Welcome to the beginning of what I hope is a wonderful week.”

While unidentified victims of World War II remain buried at Punchbowl and across the Pacific, Ashwell said that meeting survivors’ families reminds her that the losses remain fresh, “as if they just lost their uncle or grandfather just recently.”

She spoke of the ongoing search for more information on the Arizona crew, along with research on its sunken remains to determine how long it might remain intact.

“Even the Arizona is not impervious to time,” Ashwell said. “The Arizona and the men who called her home and her legacy still matters.”