2 Killed, 2 Injured During Multi-State Procession For World War II Veteran
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (CBS4) -- Pearl Harbor survivor and World War II veteran Donald Stratton was honored Saturday in Colorado Springs. Hundreds attended his funeral.
A WWII-era B-25 flew overhead.
One of the speakers at the service was Landon Knestrick, an 8-year-old from North Carolina who befriended Stratton four years ago after reading about him.
"Thank you for being such a good friend to me. I love you and I hope you are enjoying making your shipmates laugh once again," Knestrick said. "I will never forget you and hope to be more like you as I grow up. I will always miss you. You will be my forever hero."
Stratton was a Seaman First Class aboard the USS Arizona when it sunk during the Japanese attack on U.S. warships on Dec. 7, 1941.
In 2017, Stratton posthumously honored the sailor on a neighboring ship who threw a rope to Stratton as the Arizona burned 76 years earlier, saving his life.
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"I'm very grateful. But I'm grateful more or less for the 1,117 men that we lost that day on the Arizona," Stratton said in an interview with CBS affiliate KKTV in 2018. "Plus all the others in all the other wars."
A procession took his body across Colorado, through Kansas, and into Red Cloud, Nebraska -- his hometown and his burial site.
Colorado Springs Police Department escorted the family and casket as far Monument, then turned over the duties to private citizens and veterans.
Sadly, the procession was marred by three accidents.
The first involved a pair of motorcycles that went down in the northbound lanes of I-25 at the Castle Pines exit. The unidentified riders were seriously injured and taken to Sky Ridge Medical Center, according to a spokesman with the Colorado State Patrol.
Hours later, as the procession neared Grainfield, Kansas, a Patriot Guard member lost control of his motorcycle and was struck by a minivan following him. The rider was identified as 65-year-old Lennie Riedel of Kansas. The driver of the minivan was identified as a 51-year-old woman from Colorado Springs.
As emergency crews directed traffic around the scene, an 81-year-old Virginia man, Carl Silvrants, drove past them and rear-ended a fire truck. He died at the scene.
Donald Stratton was 97. Before his Feb. 14 passing, he was one of only three Pearl Harbor survivors still alive. Just one of the three was able to attend last year's remembrance ceremony in person.
