The living legacy of the Pearl Harbor attack, which occurred 70 years ago Wednesday and drew the U.S. into World War II , resides in a narrow brick home in Chicago's Dunning neighborhood, a corner house in west suburban Countryside and a one-bedroom apartment in an assisted living center in Freeport. That's where Jack Barry, Ed Block and Dean Garrett spend their days and nights. They are members of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association, a group dedicated to preserving the memory of the "date which will live in infamy." Decimated by the dwindling number of survivors — the youngest of whom are in their late 80s — the 53-year-old national organization will dissolve Jan. 1. "The inevitable has arrived," association President William Muehleib stated in the organization's November newsletter. "Now was the time to make decisions that would recognize our current situation. … It's been a long and distinguished run." The building was just shaking," said Garrett, 91, of Freeport. "Bombs and bombs and bombs and bombs. Ships blowing up. It was a tremendously noisy. You could imagine what was taking place out there. It was just horrible — the noise and the casualties. They were terrible." By 9 p.m., Garrett recalled, the 250-bed hospital had treated 900 patients. He worked for three consecutive days, he said. "It was day and night and day and night," Garrett said. "All I know was when I got off, I couldn't go to sleep. I was overly excited and extremely upset." For all three men, Pearl Harbor was a harbinger of what lay ahead when they were dispatched throughout the Pacific. Garrett stayed for about a year at Pearl Harbor, where one of his first jobs was to recover and identify the remains of sailors who had died in the lower decks of a ship, he said. Afterward, Garrett was assigned to the USS Minneapolis. For the next two years, he was in some of the war's fiercest sea battles in the Pacific. Barry became an aviation machinist's mate on an aircraft that rescued downed pilots and their crews. He earned a Purple Heart on Guadalcanal but refuses to discuss it. Block, wounded when his second ship, the USS Johnston, was sunk in battle, spent 57 hours in the water. The "worst part," he recalled, "was hearing men scream when they were pulled under by the sharks." Block, too, earned a Purple Heart for his wounds. When they returned to the U.S. after helping to win the war, Barry, Block and Garrett left the service, married, raised families and built successful lives. Barry joined the Chicago Police Department and retired as a sergeant after 34 years. Block opened a barbershop in Lyons, then worked as a machinist and mechanic. Garrett started as a junior high school English teacher in Freeport and worked his way up to superintendent before retiring in 1987. They don't talk much about Pearl Harbor. And they don't particularly view themselves as historical figures, even as their place in history fades. "I never thought about being a part of history," Barry said. "It was just part of my life. I want people to remember Pearl Harbor, that we screwed up. We weren't prepared and we should be prepared. Be alert." Alertness is also what the Millers hope to foster. "I get pretty emotional about this," said Rick Miller. "Kids aren't taught this stuff anymore. It's a paragraph in a history book. Someone's got to keep the story going." These articles is located in the Chicago Tribune.