Prattville honors 100-year-old D-Day Navy veteran Harry Ural Jackson Jr.

At Greensprings Assisted Living in Prattville, Harry Ural Jackson Jr. was surrounded Tuesday afternoon by veterans, family members and community leaders as the city marked the 100-year-old Navy veteran’s service from Normandy to the Pacific.

Jackson enlisted in the U.S. Navy on his 18th birthday in 1943 and went on to serve as a Second Class Sonarman aboard a submarine chaser off the beaches of Normandy. He took part in the D-Day landing at Utah Beach on June 6, 1944, then continued his wartime service in the Asian-Pacific Theater before coming home after the war.

His story carried added weight because so few Americans who lived through World War II are still alive to tell it firsthand. The National WWII Museum says more than 16 million Americans served in the war, while U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs projections put the number of living World War II veterans at about 66,100 nationwide in 2024. Axios reported that the same projection showed about 300 living WWII veterans in Louisiana and more than 7,000 in California.

That shrinking number is part of what made the Prattville ceremony feel bigger than a birthday tribute. Jackson’s life reaches back to one of the defining moments of the 20th century, when Operation Neptune, the assault phase of Operation Overlord, began on June 6, 1944 and ran through June 30, 1944. Official Navy history says Utah Beach was the westernmost of the five Normandy landing sectors, and about 21,000 troops landed there with relatively few casualties compared with Omaha Beach.

The recognition came together in part through the Atagi Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Martha Pegues learned of Jackson through his family at First Baptist Church in Prattville, and the chapter helped organize the honor. The Atagi Chapter says it was confirmed on April 21, 2012, and its name comes from a Native American village name tied to the Alabama River and Autauga Creek. Pegues said the chapter likes to give Quilts of Valor to veterans.

Jackson’s son-in-law, Lenny Schaefer, said the family was deeply moved by the turnout. “The family felt blessed and humbled by the recognition and appreciation shown by the DAR, the assisted-living staff and residents, the mayor of Prattville, and neighbors from the Prattville community,” Schaefer said.

For Prattville, the gathering did more than celebrate one man’s century of life. It showed a community choosing to honor living history now, while the generation that remembers Normandy firsthand is still here to receive it.