<I>KEVIN HEIMBIGNER photo</I><BR>Leneord Werner says, "I'm probably the oldest World War II veteran on the Peninsula who is still working six days a week." He is holding his favorite, a peanut butter cup, and waiting for veterans to stop by and help him and wife Melva celebrate Memorial Day. "We can't forget those who sacrificed," he says.

LONG BEACH – Leonard Werner was a Marine in the Fourth Division and on a ship in Sabo Harbor in Japan when the Potsdam Declaration was signed between Emperor Hirohito and the United States on Aug. 15, 1945, effectively ending fighting in the Pacific Theater.

“I was heading toward the planned invasion of Japan on the USS Nimitz when we heard the news,” Werner says. “Oh, I was very happy about the armistice. If we had tried to invade Japan it would have been a disaster for both sides. They had cannons in the mountains and they were fixed on us. I’m still glad to be alive to this day because of that treaty.”

Werner, who at age 86 still works with his wife Melva at Werner Candies in Long Beach, remembers, “The atomic bombs saved thousands of lives, both of Americans and Japanese.” Werner celebrated Memorial Day in his candy shop by making his sweet confectionary delights and by saying “Hi” to the veterans who still make the visit each year to his store. “Several vets come by and also in the summer they stop in during their vacations,” Werner explains. “In 1998 the Marine Corps Fourth Division had a reunion and I was able to see everyone, but there aren’t many of us left anymore.”

In December 1941 Werner was in Newark, N.J., he says with his typical good humor, “I enlisted to avoid being drafted.

“I signed up on a Sunday and was in the Marines by Monday,” Werner continued. “I went to boot camp at Paris Island in South Carolina and it was the damndest thing I ever did in my life. When I finished that we were given 75 howitzers from World War I and told to clean and fix them up.”

Werner served until 1946, saying, “I was in hundreds of attacks and you never knew if you were going to be hit or if what you fired their way hit any of the Japanese. We were always in danger from bombing, invasions, torpedoes; from everything the people who make Mitsubishi’s could throw at us.” Werner harbors no anger against the Japanese, “It was a matter of supporting our country.”

He has made the trek to Pearl Harbor several times and visited the memorial on the battleship Arizona. “I cry every time I go there. I lost some friends from back home at Pearl and lost many more of my buddies in battles on the Coral Sea.” Werner was stationed for four years in the South Pacific and spent much of his time as an artillery man and traveling on the troop transport ship, Leonard Wood. Later he was stationed in Japan for almost two more years. “I never had any direct contact with the enemy and that was fine with me.”

For most of those two years Werner “fought the war behind a typewriter as a Quartermaster.” He was stationed in Japan after the two atomic bombs were detonated on Hiroshima August 6 and on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. “The devastation was unworldly,” Werner says of Nagasaki. “I remember a trolley car totally gutted at Ground Zero and a storage plant’s steel beams rolled up like curly cues and that was the only two things left standing. The only thing left of buildings was the holes in the ground they had used for their toilets. The only people we saw were those returning to see what had happened.”

On the lighter side, Werner relates, “We lived for awhile a very luxurious life. We were part of the convoy that unloaded a ship and the Red Cross donated a truck load of cigarettes and we just happened to be the ones who picked them up.” Over 60 years ago-and assuming the statute of limitations has run its course-Werner says with a wink that his unit parlayed the cigarettes into a veritable gold mine.

While in Japan, Werner turned down a Purple Heart from his corpsmen. “I had the choice of the Purple Heart or a bottle of brandy. Now, I regret my choice, but at the time I was 25 years old and the brandy sounded better to me.”

Following the war Werner left Newark for Seaside, Ore. “I found a better place. The New York area has a world to see, but I’m happy to be at the beach.” He worked as a produce broker and then in 1976 decided to get into the candy business. “I learned from a Greek candy maker while I was in high school. My favorites are my peanut butter cups made from my own recipe.” He and Melva moved to Long Beach about five years ago and they work six days a week in their store at what Leonard jokingly calls, “Our retirement.” He adds, “Our three kids and six grandkids live close by and we like the sunshine.”

Werner also worked part-time as a photographer for 15 years. “I sold my pictures to newspapers and also did portraits. The best was when I’d take portraits of executives and then sell them back to them. That’s where the money was.”

In 2005 Werner was diagnosed with cancer and has had two major surgeries “at the VA hospital in Portland.” He says, “I quit smoking over 40 years ago, but no one told us of the radiation that was in Nagasaki. We didn’t know it could be dangerous.” He adds with a shrug, “I have no idea if that was what caused my cancer, but the doctors say it is in remission.”

About Memorial Day, Werner cautions, “They make all of these holidays too generic. I’m afraid people may forget those who sacrificed. Right or wrong, this is our country-it’s like our family. I think all young men should take a turn at serving to learn the meaning of what America is.”

When asked if he would again serve as a Marine as he did in World War II, Werner says with quiet conviction, “In a heart beat. I learned to follow advice and I have lived a good life. I am a better patriot than I ever would have been. I learned to love my country.”

Memorial Day was first celebrated in New York State in 1873 and in 1971 it was adopted as a National Holiday on the last Monday of May. Originally called Decoration Day, it is a day of remembrance for those who died in our nation’s service, something Leonard Werner will never forget.