With very few living members of the greatest generation left to call upon, veterans in Boston were prepared to turn to surviving family to commemorate the Battle of Iwo Jima one last time, only to be caught off guard by the surprise appearance of a 99-year-old veteran of that bloody World War II battle.

Members of the Massachusetts Marine Corps League gathered Wednesday at the State House for a 25th time to mark the passage of another year since the infamous fight against the forces of the Imperial Japanese Army that claimed the lives of more than 6,000 U.S. servicemen and injured tens of thousands more.

This year, the 80th anniversary of the battle, is the last year the event is scheduled to take place at the State House. Of the more than 100,000 U.S. service members that participated in the battle and survived, fewer than a dozen are left.

The final commemoration was proceeding despite the apparent absence of any surviving veterans of the battle, when to the surprise of everyone at the event Joe Cappuccio, a former member of the 3rd Battalion of the 28th Marines that fought on Iwo Jima, came to the attention of event organizers during the middle of the ceremony (the emcee credited his unexpected appearance to the camouflage training U.S. Marines receive).

Cappuccio, 99, made his way to the podium and remarked that he would turn 100-years-old soon. The retired iron worker shared that he had lived a full life after leaving Iwo Jima alive, and he had some advice to offer his fellow veterans.

“Do what you have to do, but you gotta keep moving, that’s what I do. I’ve traveled the world over, and I loved it. After I got out of the service, my wife and I did 42 countries — on our own, not with the government. I wish you guys could all do what I did in my life, and — believe me — enjoy it,” he said.

Marine Corps League members John MacGillivray and Warren Griffin led the ceremony, which also saw 100-year-old Leo Carroll, a World War II veteran, receive a citation for his service.

Assistant Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps Gen. Christopher Mahoney explained to the audience why it was so important to the country and to Marines to remember Iwo Jima and what men just like Joe Cappuccio did there.

The 36-day long battle for control of a heavily fortified pacific island, fought from the 19th of February through the 26th of March, 1945, has become such a significant part of Marine Corps lore and history that the island itself is among the few places which can cause a U.S. Marine to “get religion.”

“I don’t mean the divine type. I mean the super-normal type,” Mahoney said.

There is a certain feeling of solemnity that occurs for a Marine, Mahoney explained, “when you stand on the south beach of Wake Island and look south at the expanse of the Pacific,” and imagine what the defenders there must have felt as Japanese warships and planes surrounded the atoll and began their attack on the United States in the opening salvos of World War II.

The same feeling occurs, he said, “if you stand in the wheat fields, facing east 800 yards from a place called Belleau Wood in Château-Thierry, France, in the spring.” Then a Marine can feel what their forbearers felt as they “marched into that butchery” in June of 1918, during the height of World War I.

And then there is experience that comes with standing in the “black sand” of Red and Green Beach on Iwo Jima. There too, he said, a U.S. Marine will “feel it.”

“You will hear the waves crashing on the shore and feel the heat — the tropical heat. If the winds are right you’ll smell the sulphur. If you look from Green Beach onto the south, you’ll see the impossibility of Mount Suribachi and you will get it. You will feel it. You’ll feel the heroism beyond description,” he said. “Yes, Marines will get religion on Iwo Jima.”

MBTA Board member Thomas McGee, a former state senator and the son of the late Massachusetts House Speaker and Iwo Jima Veteran of the same name, also addressed the audience. Speaker McGee was responsible for helping to pass Iwo Jima Day into state law, and spoke at the first event held 25 years ago.

The former Speaker, his son said, “didn’t talk about this much, but I know how proud he was to be a Marine.”

The U.S. Marine Corps Memorial is seen at sunset with the U.S. Capitol and Washington Monument behind, in Arlington, Va. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)