Nearly eight decades have passed since Dante Tini left his beloved home and family in Virginia and joined the Navy. He would die at just 19, killed when Japanese planes bombed Pearl Harbor Dec. 7, 1941, and the United States was at war.

On Saturday the remains of Dante Sylvester Tini were blessed at a funeral Mass at Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Virginia and were laid to rest in Calvary Cemetery next to the graves of his parents, Italian immigrants Daniel and Rachel Tini. And hundreds of people including military veterans in full dress — and 99-year-old Pearl Harbor survivor Arleigh Birk of Hoyt Lakes — paid their respects.