The Vietnam Vets Legacy Vets Motorcycle Club came together with the Town of Smyrna, state officials and local contractors Aug. 10 to break ground at Smyrna’s Lake Como for a memorial that will commemorate the Dec. 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. The memorial will be dedicated at 12 p.m., Friday, Dec. 7.

The project is a collaboration of funding from the state, the motorcycle club and the Delaware State VVA Council, and the contribution of a 3,000-lb. anchor from a 1942 destroyer by the U.S. Navy will become part of the memorial with a traditional stone marker depicting an image of the attack on battleship row in 1941.

President Roosevelt’s words, “A date which will live in infamy,” will be inscribed at the top, with VVA’s national logo, “Never again will one generation of veterans abandon another,” at the bottom.

“It’s important that succeeding generations are aware of what these rapidly disappearing veterans and their peers went through to preserve our freedoms,” said Terry Baker, VNVLVM/C coordinating chairman.

The annual event commemorating the attack that pulled the United States into WWII was originally hosted at Lake Como by another veterans organization. The WWII veterans who organized it aged out, and three years ago the VNVLVM/C, which includes members of New Castle VVA Chapter 83, began hosting the event and inviting other veterans and the public to attend.