On a recent trip back to the United States, I spent a spare day in Boston while waiting for a plane connection and I used it to do some sightseeing. I decided to visit the USS Constitution -- “Old Ironsides†-- which I had not seen for years.
USS Constitution
Launched in 1797, she is still a commissioned ship of the U.S. Navy and remains tied up at the old Boston Naval Shipyard as a national memorial. The Constitution's stout oak hull and more than 50 guns made her a powerful defender of American interests at a time when our young republic was largely defenseless. Barbary pirates were seizing our merchant ships in the Mediterranean with impunity, and the British were able to invade their former colony and burn down the White House during the war of 1812.
As a former naval officer, I remain fascinated by all things maritime. But what really caught my eye at the shipyard was a World War II U.S. Navy warship tied up at another pier. The USS Cassin Young is a sleek, thin-skinned, Fletcher class destroyer that survived repeated Japanese Kamikaze attacks in the Pacific, including two devastating direct hits.
It was like running into an old girlfriend after half a century. I had served on a slightly bigger class of destroyers in the post-war 1950s, and to my eyes the Cassin Young still looks remarkably good. Long since decommissioned, she is also a national memorial, maintained by a volunteer crew of former sailors who spend their spare time chipping paint and polishing up the old girl.
They showed me around the ship, and memories of the “tin can navy†came flooding back – the 5 inch guns that left me partially deaf, the Chief Petty Officers' quarters where a young officer could always find the best cup of coffee, and the bridge where I spent what seemed like endless hours in four on/eight off watches.
I felt an immediate kinship with the old salts who were caring for the Cassin Young, even though we had never been shipmates.
USS Cassin Young
I talked and reminisced with one of them, a sailor who served in the Mediterranean in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s. As we were shooting the breeze, he came round to the subject of America's present war in Iraq. He felt that this is not a war that our country needed to fight. I agreed. There were no Barbary pirates attacking our ships, no Japanese armada threatening to defeat America. There was 9/11 of course, but Iraq had nothing to do with that. He talked about the cost of this war: Think what our government could accomplish at home with the money that is being poured into Iraq. Think of the lives that have been sacrificed on both sides.
It should not have surprised me that two old hands would come to the same conclusions. A long life and a world of experience give a person a deep perspective on current events. History should inform our opinions as well. The USS Constitution fought battles that needed to be fought. The Cassin Young defended a nation from a mortal threat. What are our soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen doing in Iraq?
Perhaps the next generation – with the benefit of hindsight – will be better able to answer that question. But as things look now, some old timers think we have no business being there.
