For the first half century after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, no one made much of a fuss about Bernard Ordos, an Army veteran who settled into West Mifflin after surviving the Dec. 7, 1941, attack.

Sure, there were some special moments, such as the time when everyone wanted to buy him a drink in a Salt Lake City bar right after World War II ended.

"We didn't pay for anything," Mr. Ordos said, smiling at the memory of being toasted by strangers.

Steve Mellon, Post-Gazette Bernard Ordos kisses Betty, his wife of 66 years, at the couple's West Mifflin home, where the walls are covered with photos of their three children, three grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren, as well as memorabilia from Mr. Ordos' time in the Army. Mr. Ordos, 87, a member of Intrepid Post 914 of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in West Mifflin, is the post's only living survivor of the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor. Click photo for larger image.

As survivors of the attack have died, Mr. Ordos, 87, has found himself once again cast as a bit of a celebrity.

Everyone wants to hear about his experiences as a private guarding 30,000 rounds of anti-aircraft artillery at Schofield Barracks on Oahu, Hawaii, in the early morning hours of Dec. 7.

"He's been on television and in the newspapers," said his wife, Betty, who gathers news clippings and enjoys the attention he is receiving. She said KDKA Radio interviewed her husband last year and this year.

Mr. Ordos' thumbnail biography is included in a book about Pearl Harbor survivors.

Today is the 65th anniversary of the surprise attack, an event that brought the United States into World War II.

On that day, while negotiations were going on with Japanese representatives in Washington, D.C., Japanese carrier-based planes swept over Oahu without warning and attacked the bulk of the U.S. Pacific fleet, moored in Pearl Harbor.

Nineteen naval vessels, including eight battleships, were sunk or severely damaged; 188 U.S. aircraft were destroyed. Military casualties were 2,280 killed and 1,109 wounded; and 68 civilians died, according to the Columbia Encyclopedia.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt called it "A day that will live in infamy." The United States declared war on Japan on Dec. 8 and on Germany and Italy on Dec. 11.

Mr. Ordos was working a guard shift at Schofield. He was in Battery F of the Coast Artillery Anti-Aircraft Division.

He was waiting to be relieved for breakfast, "which I never got."

Suddenly, he saw an enemy plane approaching.

"One of those Japanese planes came so low over the top of our mess hall. They emptied their machine gun. They were shooting at the empty field."

Manning antiaircraft guns, he stared into the face of the enemy.

"I was looking at him and I could see him just like I was looking at you," he said, recounting the incident in the kitchen of his West Mifflin home last week.

Mr. Ordos soon found himself on the back of a truck heading toward Pearl Harbor and the center of the attack.

"That was the worst place you can be, on the back of the truck. That is where they start machine-gunning," he said.

"I was scared. I admit it. I think about it every day. I was fortunate," he said, his voice trailing off.

He didn't get any food that day. The next day, while he was assigned to patrol a beach, he asked one of his senior officers if there was "any chance of getting something to eat."

"They gave me a jelly sandwich and a canteen of water," he said.

Mr. Ordos stayed in Hawaii for several months before he was shipped to the Gilbert Islands in the Pacific. He was discharged after serving five years in the Army.

Mr. Ordos will be an honored guest at today's Pearl Harbor remembrance ceremony in the corporate air hangar at Allegheny County Airport in West Mifflin.

The event, which has been held since the 50th anniversary of the attack in 1991, is sponsored by Intrepid Post 914 of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in West Mifflin and the American Merchant Marine Veterans of the Mon Valley.

Mr. Ordos is the only living Pearl Harbor survivor in the VFW post.

The ceremony begins at 12:55 p.m., or 7:55 a.m. in Hawaii, the time the bombing started 65 years ago.

State Rep. Harry A. Readshaw, a former Marine, will be the featured speaker, and patriotic music and ceremonies will be provided by the West Mifflin Area High School Titan Thunder Band and the high school's Air Force Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps Honor Guard.

After World War II ended, life settled into normalcy for Mr. and Mrs. Ordos, who celebrated their 66th wedding anniversary Nov. 19.

They bought a cozy little house on Addison Avenue in West Mifflin, one of a group of houses built especially for veterans.

"These were for GIs. We had to put $200 down," Mrs. Ordos said.

Her husband got a job in the open hearth at the U.S. Steel Homestead Works and worked there for 35 years.

As the years passed, the couple stayed put, covering the walls with photos of their three children, three grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren, plus memorabilia from Mr. Ordos' time in the service.

They don't fly and they have never gone to the reunion of Pearl Harbor survivors that has been held in Hawaii every five years since 1964.

According to The Honolulu Advertiser, between 350 and 400 survivors, now in their 80s and 90s, will attend this year's reunion.

"There is a bit of melancholy to this one," Mal Middlesworth, national president of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association, told the newspaper. "We will probably not see a whole lot of people here again."