A PT-109 Inspired Tale

How did I end up here? It doesn’t seem long ago I was home in New England. War makes time pass slowly—summers on the Cape pass in an instant, but a summer in the Pacific feels like an eternity. 

Before current events—I was optimistic that I might get to go home. That was the hope, until just now when an enemy destroyer came barreling into us. I must have hit my head in the crash because my world was now spinning. All I saw were bodies floating around me. 

When I was a kid, I never imagined being a sailor. I wanted to be a ballplayer. I spent my childhood playing stickball in the streets of Boston. I never anticipated trading in my mitt to become a gunner’s mate. I didn’t know until recently what a gunner’s mate was, but I certainly knew now.

Now, here I am, about as far as one could get from a baseball diamond; our crew was demoralized, everyone except our lieutenant that is—who seemed unshaken by the ordeal.

In baseball, as in life, you are ultimately judged not by the number of errors you make but by how you respond to them. Our lieutenant wasn’t letting getting sliced in half by an enemy destroyer do more damage to us than it already had. His mistake now lost to history.

He pressed on, willing his body through the waves, snatching mangled sailors as he led us on a journey back towards shore. 

My hands began slipping off the remaining scrap of metal serving as our raft. Life dangled in the balance. I looked around at my fellow sailors one last time. In my peripheral, I caught another glimpse of our lieutenant, continuing to fight, another man’s vest straps clenched between his teeth. 

His courage inspired a jolt of life through my body. 

If our lieutenant, more battered than I, could muster up enough strength to save the life of his fellow man, then undoubtedly, I could hold on to my own.