The other day, I happened to be sitting across a table from an old man while he ate his breakfast. He mentioned casually that he can't eat eggs any longer, having cooked too many eggs for the "hundred and eighty men in the battery".
"Oh, you were an artilleryman?"
"Coastal defenses on Oahu."
"Oh."
After a long pause, he said, "We saw the planes coming, but there was nothing we could do. Our guns were for keeping away ships, not planes."
After a longer pause, he added, "I never really got over that."
I had several thoughts after that exchange:
*It's a damn shame that he has to carry that around with him all his life. And he was just the cook, for crying out loud.
*Even his unit commander wasn't at fault. The ones who can fairly be censured weren't even there that day.
*I wonder whether Oregon, being a West coast state, has a disproportionate number of Pearl Harbor survivors?
*I'm glad that I live in a country where it is relatively unlikely that the nice old man sitting across from me is going to reveal in casual conversation that he is a war criminal.
I shared none of these with the old man. I just let him eat his egg-free breakfast in peace.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent."\\
1 comment:
A time will come when you only you can speak. Are you prepared to say what needs to be said to get the desired outcome?
We shall see.
Post a Comment