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Flags to be flown half-staff today

BISMARCK (AP) - Gov. John Hoeven is asking North Dakotans to fly all U.S. and state flags at half-staff today for Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day.

Hoeven says it's important to honor the servicemen and women who died while serving their country during the attack on Pearl Harbor.

President Barack Obama has signed a proclamation designating today as day of remembrance.

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John Sinn of Minot was in Des Moines, Iowa, working at the Des Moines ordnance plant when he heard that Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, had been bombed by the Japanese.

Sixty years later, on Sept. 11, 2001, Sinn's son, Jerry, an Army officer, was at the Pentagon when another defining moment in U.S. history occurred when terrorists made their attack on U.S. soil.

That Dec. 7 day in 1941 when John Sinn was working at the ordnance plant on a Sunday, he remembers how he learned about the bombing at Pearl Harbor.

"I heard it over the loudspeaker," said Sinn. "It was cloudy, misty and raining. I was walking in the mud and carrying a tool box from one building to another."

After the announcement was made at the plant, Sinn remembers he and others there talked about it and waited to hear more about it.

He said one guy who worked at the plant who had been in the Navy enlisted right away to go back into the service.

Sinn thought about going into the Army Air Corps but his folks weren't crazy about him doing that. They figured the chances of losing him in a plane going down were quite good. "So I waited until they drafted me," he said.

His plans had been to go to Drake University in Des Moines. When he went to the college to make the arrangements for attending, a woman there said, " 'I think all you guys will be in the Army pretty quick.' She saved us some money," he said.

Then in June 1942, Sinn went into the Army.

Sinn, who was with the combat engineers, which is part of an infantry division, went to various training areas including in Kansas, Texas, Missouri and California before going overseas.

He went overseas to Europe in February 1945 and his first combat action occurred near Dusseldorf, Germany. When the war was over and he was discharged in late November 1945, he came back to North Dakota. A few years earlier, he and the former Olive Johansen of Ryder were married.

Sixty years from 1941, Sinn remembers another day when this country came under a devastating attack when terrorists hit the World Trade Center in New York City.

Sinn remembers he was working in the Scandinavian Heritage Park in Minot, where he has volunteered many hours for the past 14 years.

After hearing the news of the terrorists' attack in New York City, he went home to be with his wife. Their son, Jerry, the Army's budget director, worked at the Pentagon but he had gone to the airport early that morning to catch a plane. After news came of the terrorist attacks in New York, the flight was canceled and he went back to his office at the Pentagon.

"He was about halfway up the steps when the plane hit the building," his father said. Jerry Sinn told The Minot Daily News in 2006 that he would have been at a meeting in the area of the Pentagon that was hit by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks but instead was catching a plane flight at the time.

Back in North Dakota, Jerry Sinn's parents waited that day to hear about their son. "We didn't know if he was alright," John Sinn said. At 4:30 p.m. that day they got the call that he was OK. "But a friend of his, a three-star general, was killed," John Sinn said.

Jerry Sinn, like his dad, had also seen combat action in the military, having served in Vietnam.

"They were both sneak attacks," said John Sinn of the Pearl Harbor and the 9-11 attacks.

Three immediate family members of the Sinn family have served or are serving their country. "We have in excess of 68 years in the military," John Sinn said.

Jerry Sinn, who grew up in Garrison and now is from Alexandria, Va., retired with the rank of lieutenant general after a nearly 39-year career with the Army. He is with DRS Technologies, Inc.

Now another Sinn is serving in the military in the war on terror.

John Sinn's grandson and Jerry and Cheryl Sinn's son, Andrew Sinn, an Army chief warrant officer 2, is an Apache helicopter pilot who just finished a tour of duty in Iraq. Currently, Andrew Sinn is in Germany.