OPED: Special Thoughts About Memorial Day

By Jeff Mudgett, Co-founder of the Maritime Executive Magazine & former Editor

Quick Note:

Dear readers, I am investigating the “pipe program” used by British Petroleum. Program refers to the type of pipe used before they cemented. Some pipe costs more than others. There are rumors that a stronger, more expensive one might have prevented this disaster. I need to verify this still rumor and get all my facts straight before I release any information. I am also attempting to reach a spokesman at B. P. to allow them to comment about this issue. Be patient and remember what I first told you: this hole cannot be plugged-- it must be emptied.

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Special Thoughts About Memorial Day

Thirty years ago, when I was a young man serving as Third Mate aboard the ‘USNS UTE’, a fleet salvage tug in the orient, the boat had engine problems and was sent to a shipyard. So, a shipmate and I hopped the bullet train and toured Japan. Like all sailors on liberty, my friend and I enjoyed the sites, food, and spent a great deal of time consuming alcoholic beverages. Sometimes we were funny, but other times we were just plain obnoxious and rude. I will never forget the day when my shipmate and I visited Hiroshima. On that day I learned one of the most valuable lessons in my life about respecting a place of honor, no matter whom it belongs to.

At ground zero for the Japanese in WWII, my friend and I completely lost sight of where we were and what the place meant to the Japanese. This hallowed ground was where the Japanese came to pay their respects to their dead ancestors; it was a place of remembrance, humility and respect. Oblivious to all the pain and sorrow around us, we two light-headed Americans had forgotten the importance of this place of honor where the Japanese came to say goodbye to their ancestors.
Their pain was like an electrical charge traveling back and forth through the air to each of them. We could see their agony as the hatred for us boiled over, threatening to burst out in, perhaps, justified violence. But they didn't hurt us. The Japanese maintained their civility, instead waiting until we bored of our childishness and left them alone. Maybe, the Japanese there that day at ground zero knew our lessons would come later in time.

Later, older and wiser, I was serving as Chief Mate on a bigger, faster ship. It was Memorial Day, and I had a couple of days off in Hawaii and decided to visit Pearl Harbor and the USS Arizona, the monument to American bravery and young lives lost in the opening salvo of World War II. Dressed in my ‘Whites,’ the ones I never seemed to wear, I was shaved, shined and ready to visit the great American monument to our fallen ancestors. Riding the taxicab I prepared for the solemnity of the occasion that Memorial Day.

When I arrived, I never expected to find what I did over the beautiful rusting hull of the destroyed battle ship. There were cameras clicking and childish giggling, amid incessant irritating foreign chatter dominating this place of great honor. The monument was crowded with young Japanese tourists, from the same country that had sent the planes that had sunk this American war ship. These tourists had no respect for our dead! My blood boiled in a rage that I had never experienced before or since. I wanted to strangle each and every one of them with my bare hands, these unfeeling, insensitive tourists from Japan. This was a place of honor! Couldn't they see the oil still escaping from the tanks below, rising to the surface to remind us of all that happened that fateful Sunday morning? As I was ready to commit mayhem, justified perhaps, I took a deep breath, calmed myself and remembered that day years ago when I had done the same thing at their place of great remembrance and sorrow. Rather than causing more senseless pain, I instead waited for them to leave and then bowed my head in a salute of gratitude to those American heroes still lying below in these hallowed waters. Today, I know those sailors would have been proud of me and the lessons I learned on those two days so many years apart from one another.

On this American Memorial Day, I remember the fallen heroes of my country, but I also remember that each nation has its places of honor for its fallen heroes of war. This Memorial Day I am proud of who I am, an American, and who I have become because of the heroes who died for our nation and the lessons learned many years before.