Could public service be the salve that heals our nation’s wounds?
We are living in a trying time for our democracy. Many of us are questioning the survival of our deeply divided society. Seventy-five years ago, Americans faced an even graver danger when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, destroying much of our navy and killing 2,403 Americans. The enemy then was a foreign power, but the challenges at home were not very different from what we see around us today.
The American response to Pearl Harbor showed the power of public service to bring distrustful, hurting citizens together and forge a stronger nation. We can learn from that experience today as we reflect on where to begin in healing our more recent wounds and redefining the American promise for the 21st century.
At the time of the Pearl Harbor attack, the United States was deeply divided. Most Americans had not recovered the wealth they lost during the Great Depression, and they remained insecure about their futures in a weak economy. Insecurity fed bigotry and intolerance.
The vast majority of Americans opposed war against the fascist powers. They remembered the costs of the First World War and the unsatisfying results. They hated many elements of fascism but did not believe it was worse than Soviet communism, British imperialism, or the continued growth of “Oriental,” “African” and “Jewish” groups in the lands conquered by the fascists. “America First” was a rallying cry for ordinary white Americans who felt mistreated by elites, scarred by economic difficulties and dislocated by international policies.
The Japanese intended their attack to inflame the divisions in the United States, much as Russian, Chinese, the Islamic State group and North Korean leaders seek to exploit our divisions today. But contrary to these expectations, the United States emerged more united in 1941 because it had leaders, especially President Franklin Roosevelt, who tied the war effort to public service, not partisan positions or special interests.
around her. It seemed for a time the entire line of battlewagons was on fire and that nothing could be saved. My whole world was on fire. Where is my brother?
No one knows how, but the Vestal was able to get underway and move out of the holocaust and move away from the Arizona. But her freedom was short-lived when she caught a couple of heavy bomb hits — one ripping her open from the main deck to her keel. She began to sink, and her skipper ran her aground to prevent disaster.
Throughout the attack I was alternately fighting fire and handling the dead and wounded. My hands had never before touched a dead man. It was a horrifying experience to have the flesh of a man fall apart to my touch. I heard cries, whispered prayers of fear and cursing in anger, but through it all, I saw no panic. I had tasted the bitters of Hell, but I did not weep.
In the days following, I was assigned to a launch as the motorman. Two others — a coxswain and a bowman — made up the launch crew. Our duty was removing bodies that were rising to the surface in the harbor. It was almost impossible to pull the bodies into the launch without tearing the flesh, so we towed them to a specially-built float at the recreation field.
After three days this work began to tell on my nerves. Each time we removed a body I was afraid to search for identification because, you see, I was afraid I would find my brother, Wayne, who was assigned to the Vestal.
On the third day after the attack, I told the bowman how to operate the engine and then asked the coxswain to drop me off on the gangway to the Vestal, then lay-off and wait for me. I was surprised when the duty officer allowed me aboard, but when I told him why I made the request, all he asked me was if I knew where my brother’s quarters were. When I said yes, he welcomed me aboard. I walked to the hatch that led down to Wayne’s quarters, and my heart almost stopped from what I saw. The hatchway was blown away, and a bomb had gone right through Wayne’s quarters. I began to shake. I tried to light a cigarette, and my hands shook so hard I couldn’t contact flame with cigarette. A man lit my cigarette for me. It was a friend of my brother whom I had met on a previous visit. He said Wayne was okay, but was on the beach in a work party. I was shaken, but did not weep.
It took 10 days to remove the Tennessee from her wedge between the West Virginia and the quays. When she was freed, we returned to the shipyard at Bremerton, Wash., for extensive repairs and alterations.
The years that followed were spent on three ships in every corner of the globe, both in the Pacific and the Atlantic. All through the suspense, monotony, loneliness and horror, I was proud that this farm boy had the privilege of wearing the uniform of Uncle Sam’s Navy. The songs “Anchors Aweigh,” “America the Beautiful” and our beloved “Star Spangled Banner” still make my chest swell with pride. ‘I wept’
As the tour craft pulled alongside the memorial that is constructed over the still visible hull of the Arizona, my thoughts returned to the present. The crowd was very quiet as we filed aboard the Memorial. The first thing we saw was the great bell that served the battleship for many years.
The people were very reverent, and when anyone spoke, it was almost in a whisper. My wife and I stood for several minutes viewing the pictures of the attack and read the more than one thousand names of those still entombed in the hull only a few feet below where we were standing.
As we stood looking down on what would have been about midship, small wisps of oil would occasionally break on the surface as if those below were saying, “Hey up there; we’re still here.” I wanted to shout, “We remember, mates — and thank you.” I wept.
As I stood gripping the railing with my back to the crowd so they could not see the tears rolling down my face, my thoughts raced through history and the years from 1776 to the present. There were so many that had paid the ultimate price to win and hold the freedom we enjoy. To those below and the others before and after you, “You are not forgotten.”