Gulf War veteran Christopher Sanchez is racing against time to capture as many World War II veterans as he can to sign his copy of Tom Brokaw’s “The Greatest Generation.”

At Saturday’s National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day Commemoration at the USS Arizona Visitors Center, Sanchez had collected eight by the time he spoke to the Honolulu Star- Advertiser late morning.

Ceremony officials estimated Sanchez could have obtained about 40 signatures — 13 of them from Pearl Harbor attack survivors and just one who was on the USS Arizona when it was attacked.

The mission is a simple yet poignant endeavor for Sanchez, 51. It’s rooted in the same value system that told him it was important that he and his wife, Deborah, bring their 11-year-old son from Massachusetts to attend Saturday’s 78th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that killed 2,403 Americans.

“It’s important for me to show him this history because of how significant it was in shaping the world that we have today and keeping us free,” Sanchez said, nodding at his son, Christian. “And also because in his lifetime, World War II veterans will cease to exist. And I don’t want him to ever miss the experience of meeting them.”

Sanchez, 51, said he regrets never having the chance to meet World War I veterans. He wants to make sure that doesn’t happen with Christian and World War II vets. “So I’m doing everything I can to preserve their memory and their legacy. And this book — when there are no more World War II veterans to sign it — it will be passed on in trust to him. And my hope is that he will give it to his grandchildren.”

Sanchez has collected more than 100 signatures in all from veterans he’s met from Pearl Harbor to Normandy. The one signature from someone not a World War II veteran is from Brokaw himself.

Each signature, of course, comes with each individual veteran’s own story that Sanchez also is passing on to his son.

The first signature was obtained 18 years ago at the Arizona Visitors Center and came from Herb Weatherwax, the Native Hawaiian Pearl Harbor survivor who spent years at the facility as a volunteer explaining to visitors what happened on the Day of Infamy.

One of the signatures Sanchez grabbed Saturday was from Warren Upton, 100, one of three people who were on board the USS Utah when it was bombed at Pearl Harbor.

A radioman 3rd class, the San Jose native was getting ready for a leisurely Sunday swim when the first torpedo struck the Utah. The second one followed closely and within five minutes, the battleship began badly listing. Instead of a relaxing swim across Waikiki, Upton swam for his life across a channel littered with bodies and debris. “I got scratched up a bit because the uniform of the day was white shorts and a skivvy shirt,” he said.

After taking cover for a bit in a pre-made trench on the southwest side of Ford Island, Executive Officer John F. Warris mustered up the sailors he could and they helped out distributing World War I style helmets that were found in a crate, Upton said.

Following the attack, Upton stood two night watches aboard the USS Oregon.

Upton said he recognizes that with the passage of time, fewer people alive today understand and appreciate what happened at Pearl Harbor. “Remember that freedom isn’t free,” he said, when asked what message he wanted to send to today’s generation.

Lucio Sanico was a 16-year-old kid living at Aiea Sugar Mill’s Makalapa Camp, near what’s now the Navy commissary, about a mile and a half from the base.

At first, Sanico thought the planes zooming by overhead were practicing maneuvers, but then he began to see black smoke billowing from some of them. Sanico had been out collecting oysters and clams from the harbor just the day before the attack.

“Instinct told him not to come on Sunday,” said Donna Chee, Sanico’s daughter.

In 1944, Sanico got drafted into the Army and he attempted to join the famed 442nd Regimental Combat Team. “A guy said, ‘Hey, that guy’s not Japanese!’” Instead, he ended up with the 1st Filipino Infantry Regiment where he remained through the war doing a lot of mop-up work in the Philippines.

“I don’t want to think about that stuff,” Sanico said, when asked about his experiences as a soldier.

In 2017, Sanico and World War II veterans of Filipino ancestry traveled to Washington, where they were awarded the Bronze Medal.

Rear Adm. Robert Chadwick, commander of Navy Region Hawaii and Naval Surface Group Middle Pacific, said that besides commemorating the tragic events at Pearl Harbor in 1941, the day also is meant to “honor and recognize the resilience and the grit of our nation and these veterans following the attack. To the veteran behind me, we owe a debt of gratitude that we can never truly repay.”

Chadwick also sent a clear message to the veterans. “Those of us who wear the uniform now certainly understand the gravity of the legacy that we inherited from the Greatest Generation and we strive every day to honor your service with our service,” he said. “And gentlemen, you are a tough act to follow.”

U.S. Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, the ceremony’s keynote speaker, told attendees that Dec. 7 holds a special meaning for his family because his grandfather’s younger brother perished aboard the USS Arizona after it was hit by Japanese bombs 78 years ago.

The website ussarizona.com lists Sam Bohlender. Bernhardt’s mother’s uncle, as one of the 1,177 crew members aboard the Arizona who died when the battleship sank. The site says Bohlender was 25, from Greeley, Colo. a gunner’s mate who held the rank of petty officer second class when he died.

“As sometimes occurs in life we learn a fact or two that rejiggers our view of history and that recently happened to me,” said Bernhardt, whose voice appeared to quiver slightly as he spoke of his relative.

His mother and her cousin shared letters Uncle Sam had sent to the family. In one correspondence dated Nov. 20, 1941, Bohlender “was hopeful that he would be able to come home for Christmas in 1942 and he was really pleased to learn that a gal he had a crush on was still interested in him,” Bernhardt said. “And yet, fate had it that he would never return to Colorado. The USS Arizona is his final resting place.”

As interior secretary, Bernhardt oversees the National Park Service which was tasked with completing a $2.1 million repair to the memorial’s loading dock after damage caused a failure of the anchoring system on the floating facility and forced the iconic memorial to be closed to the public for more than a year. The memorial reopened on Sept. 1.