“My brother’s still there,” he said,
distraught, desperate, and pleading.
“Jake’s there! I know he’s not dead!”
But one would die, and one live on.
Identical twins. Jake and John.
Birthday
Everett Reid turned twenty-four
December sixth, the day before.
He held the rank machinist’s mate.
He’d celebrated, stayed out late
with friends; they’d danced and sung.
He lived ashore. He’d married young.
In the morning, when he woke,
he heard the sirens, saw the smoke.
He’d remember all his life
the hasty parting from his wife,
her quick and terrified embrace,
his frantic journey to the base.
His birthdays, though, for many years
brought no joy. Just grief. Just tears.
The Beach
The morning beach was deserted.
We were alone, Nonny and me
(and Daddy, his camera whirring).
I tiptoed, pranced, and flirted
with waves. Just we three
and empty beach. Nothing stirring.
And if we’d looked? And been alerted
to a gray ship at the edge of the sea?
The mist would still have been there, blurring
the shape of a ship moving slowly.
Now, years later, it seems holy.
The Band
NBU 22. That’s what it was called:
Navy Band Unit 22. The Arizona band.
That morning—it was not yet eight—
they were on deck, about to play.
(Their music raised the flag each day.)
When the alert came,
they ran to their battle station—
they called it the black powder room.
Their job was to pass ammunition
to the gunners. But the black powder exploded.
Twenty-one young men, prepared
for morning colors. Not one was spared.
All the high-stepping boys
who’d marched at high school
football games, once; who’d enlisted;
now, with their instruments, lay twisted.
The Musicians
Neal Radford: At twenty-six,
Neal was the oldest among
the musicians. The others
were all so very young,
like Alexander Nadel—don’t forget
he went to Juilliard! But was still
just twenty. He played cornet.
So did the youngest; that was Bill
McCary, southern boy, seventeen.
An only child from Birmingham,
Billy was eager, bright, and keen
to give his all for Uncle Sam.
Music was their main pursuit.
Curtis Haas—they called him Curt—
played clarinet, tenor sax, and flute.
A handsome kid: a clown, a flirt.
Each band member was, like him,
such a source of family pride.
Curt was young, hardworking, trim;
twenty-one the day he died.
Back home each one had friends they missed,
dogs they’d raised, and girls they’d kissed;
childhood rooms with model planes,
boyhood bikes with rusted chains;
moms and dads and baseball teams,
and dreams—each one of them had dreams.
Captain Kidd
It sounds like the name of a pirate.
Nonny told me stories of pirates,
of trolls, and dragons, and kings.
Imaginary things.
He was not an imaginary hero.
He was Captain Isaac Campbell Kidd,
commanding officer of USS Arizona.
His friends called him Cap.
When he was made commander
of the entire Battleship Division,
he became an admiral.
Admiral Kidd ran to the bridge
that morning in December.
His Naval Academy ring
was found melted and fused to the mast.
It is not an imaginary thing,
a symbol of devotion so vast.
James Myers
James was from Missouri
and had two brothers.
The older boy had died in France
in World War I.
The youngest (out in a field,
bringing in the cows, when a storm struck)
was killed by lightning.
He was fifteen.
So James was left.
He married, and had two sons himself.
But his wife died young, and
the little boys, Jimmy and Gordon,
went to live with their grandma in Seattle.
It was the other grandma,
widowed Mary Myers, in Missouri,
who opened the telegram with dread.
“I had bad luck with all my boys,” she said.
Silas Wainwright
Popular kid, Silas. Played football
in high school. Joined everything.
He wanted to be a doctor.
But times were tough.
And Silas was the oldest
of eleven children.
No college for him.
He worked on the family farm.
Then, at twenty, he enlisted.
The navy made him a
pharmacist’s mate.
He learned to do minor surgery
It was as close as he could get