I was nearing the end of the self-guided tour of the USS North Carolina yesterday, and would have been off the ship and on the road in maybe half an hour, when my cellphone rang. I answered, and the ensuing conversation took half an hour. The delay turned out to be rather fortuitous.

I ultimately rang off and resumed my walking tour, wrapping up with the ship's bridge area. As I stepped out of the pilot house (where they steer from) and out to the signal bridge (where the signal flags are kept) I was alone, but for a tall dignified-looking elderly fellow who was standing there.

"Can you imagine being Captain of a ship like this," he said to me, out of the blue. "The responsibility...."

"Indeed," I replied, "being responsible for a ship like this, and so many men, it must have been... well, I can't imagine it." I really can't. I had a squad of seven troops and maybe a couple of million dollars of hardware — that's nothing compared to 2,600+ men and maybe 100 million dollars (in the 1940s) of ship and gear.

"And the authority," he continued, "the Captain had responsibility, but he also had authority."

"The two go hand in hand," I said, "you can't have one without the other." Garrr... just call me Mr. Cliché.

He continued, "The Captain was like a father to us." Holy smokes... the man was no mere tourist — he was revisiting his old ship. "He held the crews' lives in his hands... he was like a father and we were like a big family."

I saw what he was driving at. He meant not only responsibility for the crew, but to the crew as well. They trusted the Captain to know how to fight the ship, and he in turn trusted them to know their individual duties and to do them well.

And "well" is how they did. USS North Carolina earned 12 battle stars in the Second World War for participation in every major campaign of the Pacific war.

We strolled the deck and talked a while longer, about the differences 60 years can make, but also about many things about the service that never change. And the whole time, I was thinking this is a man who saw it happen.

My cellphone rang again, and I really did not want to answer, but I was sort of expecting it, so I excused myself... it wasn't the call I thought it might be. As I pocketed the phone, I turned to talk to the fellow, but he had gone. I looked for him, to resume our conversation, but he was nowhere to be found.

If I hadn't earlier received that 30-minute phone call, I'd never have met the man. Call it serendipity. I had actually met and spoken with a man who had stood on the decks of that very ship while under fire from the Japanese. The weightiness of the encounter didn't fully hit me for a few minutes. I had met a hero. No, I don't know his name, but as far as I am concerned, all those men were heroes.

Being the age I am, born at the tail end of the baby boom, I've known WW2 veterans since I was a kid. Many of my Dad's friends had served — Dad was a bit too young, having been born in '36, but he worked with a lot of guys many years older than he was. To a kid like me, raised on John Wayne movies, Combat! and The Rat Patrol, those men were like giants. I've even met a bona fide legend, USMC ace and recipient of the Medal of Honor Joe Foss, and one of my most prized possessions is a signed photo of some of the Doolittle raiders on the deck of the USS Hornet on their way to Japan. These things mean a lot to me.

Most of those men are gone now, of course. One who is still with us was one of my Dad's best friends in the years before my Dad's death. He's in his 80s now; during the war he flew B-29 bombers over Japan. When he bought a new car several years ago — a Mitsubishi — he joked with me that 50 years earlier he had been dropping bombs on the factory where his car was made. That is the only thing I have ever heard him say about his wartime experience.

Though they are fewer every day, some of those men are still among us. We now, however, have a new generation of men — and some women too — who I hope will be looked at by future generations of kids the way I regard the men of WW2 — as heroes.

Posted by Russ at 04:25 PM, March 29, 2005 in Soldiers/Vets