Just before 8 a.m., on December 7, 1941, Japan bombs Pearl Harbor. At home in my native Wilmington, at age 7, I learn about the attack while listening to a Washington Redskins game. In the war years to come, it seems like a man from every other house in my Forest Hills neighborhood serves in uniform. Five die. All told, 250 men from New Hanover County, or with a connection to the area, will lose their lives in combat, accidents, or from illness related to all theaters and fronts — including the Battles of Normandy and the Bulge, and in Sicily, Saipan, Iwo Jima, Cassino, Okinawa, and Germany — as well as in the air and at sea.

New Hanover High School produces two Medal of Honor recipients: Lt. Charles Murray Jr. for his service in Alsace, France, and, posthumously, Navy Corpsman Billy Halyburton, who was killed in action on Okinawa. Wilmington also is the hometown of Tuskegee Airman Percy Heath, three generals, and an admiral.

On the home front, we kids “fight” alongside them in make-believe battles from Guadalcanal to North Africa. A speedy bike ride propels me to the Central Pacific or Normandy; backyards and vacant lots transform into trenches and dugouts.

In many ways, Wilmington becomes a military city — all five armed forces are stationed here or nearby — but it’s still very much an Army town, with a population swelling to around 100,000. The North Carolina Shipbuilding Company, based here, becomes the state’s largest employer, building 243 vessels, including Liberty cargo ships for the Navy and Merchant Marine.

In town, three camps house German Afrika Korps prisoners captured in North Africa. I interact with the POWs, exchanging writing materials for canteen items. Off our coast, many believe that a German U-boat fires on the Ethyl-Dow chemical plant in Kure Beach in 1943, which would make it the only attack against America’s East Coast.

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For me, military service begins when the Navy commissions me as an ensign at 21; in 1956, I board my first ship in Japan. In 1964, following assignments on six ships and earning an amphibious warfare specialty, I leave the Navy. At 30, I enter politics, a road that leads me from being chief of staff to two California congressmen to serve Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.

When I retire to Wilmington in 1997, I see that neglect and indifference threaten the future of the city’s World War II history. I first set my sights on helping save the Second and Orange streets USO Club, one of a few original USOs left in the country. My father had served on the county defense committee that sponsored its construction in 1941. Here, my shipyard-worker sister met her Army officer future husband of 60 years.

In 2000, I establish the all-volunteer nonprofit WWII Wilmington Home Front Heritage Coalition to help identify, preserve, and interpret our legacy of service. The organization helps renovate the wartime USO — now the Hannah Block Historic USO/Community Arts Center — in 2008 and maintains the site’s home front museum, which features a memorial for each of the New Hanover County service members who died during the war.

My work to preserve war-era attractions continues in 2013, when Gov. Pat McCrory appoints me to the USS North Carolina Battleship Commission. We help raise $17 million for major hull repairs to the Battleship Memorial, which has been moored here since 1961.

The highlight of my preservation efforts, however, begins in 2007, when I discover that no community has yet staked a claim to the title “World War II Heritage City.” Why not us? For nearly 13 years, securing that designation for Wilmington consumes me. Finally, on September 2, 2020, in a ceremony at the Battleship North Carolina with President Trump, the city is officially declared the nation’s first American World War II Heritage City. That day is my life’s proudest moment.