I sit here, writing this today, in order to clear my conscience. I truly wish I could claim this story as one of heroism; a story that would make those around me feel swallowed and consumed with pride. Even 72 years later I can't help but feel a rampant battle inside of me, a battle that could even compete in intensity with the one that has triggered me to be this way. I've never been great with words, so I don't know any way to start this other than to start from the beginning.
Last night was one of the best nights of my life; the woman of my dreams has agreed to marry me. I know it may be some time before that can happen, but we agreed to be wed when we left this base after the war. I stayed out all night; I think I ran to every soldier on this base to tell him the news. I know that I should act more mature, like the sophisticated soldier I am meant to be, but I can't help but childishly want to shout from the rooftops that she said "yes". This naivety makes me ignore outside circumstances and I begin to forget about the war. I feel invincible, but that feeling won't last long. Before I went to bed I made sure to write down the date, December 6th, 1941, in a journal that I started to write in after I was positioned here in Pearl Harbor.
I wake up to the sound of loud shouting and I just assume it's my fellow soldiers fooling around. I yell a few expletives at them to be quiet and I attempt to go back to sleep. I can't go back to sleep because it sounds like people are practicing flying, in my mind I question why they would practice so early on a Sunday morning. It isn't until I hear a loud explosion followed by screams of terror that I'm sure will disturb me forever. I jump out of bed, not even bothering to get dressed as I run out to the top deck to see what has happened.
"It's the Japs! They're attacking!" is all I hear as I come up in a state of confusion that seems to have occupied everyone around me. All of a sudden I'm running. I run and I feel nothing but the adrenaline coursing through my body. I run and I don't even feel the water splashing my skin. I run and I don't even feel the crimson liquid that is the blood of other men hit my skin. I run and I run, and the only though going through my mind is 'I don't want to die'.
With a ferociously loud eruption that causes me to hear nothing afterwards but a ringing in my ear, the ship I am on is hit by a bomb and I feel myself plummet down from the force of it. My first thought is to cower behind something and wait and hope that it'll all be over soon, but the power of another soldier pulling on my arm to get me up and to get me running ruins that plan; a plan of cowardice. I'm too frightened to feel ashamed of my actions, and I highly doubt anyone here cares. I am only nineteen, my twentieth birthday has not yet approached, and I feel every part of the scared little boy I tried so hard not to be before this point.
"Jump into the water! The ship is going down!" The soldier whom I have not yet identified yet yells at not only me, but also others. I run and jump into the water, water that had once been a source of enjoyment for me, but now it felt more like a nightmare. The once perfectly clear water is now tainted with debris and the blood of American soldiers. Bodies are scattered throughout the water, and as I swim I felt a hand grip me.
A man, or rather what appeared to me a man, had grabbed me. His skin was charred from the fires started by the bombs. I'm sure if I could hear anything but the ringing in my ears he would be screaming with the unbearable pain from his condition. His skin looked like it was scarcely attached, and I could swear that if you looked close enough, you would see bone. His eyes were the brightest blue, and I mentally scoffed at the person who said "eyes are the windows to the soul", because all I saw in his eyes was the haunting lifelessness. He must be dead my brain murmured to me, so without much regard I pushed his body away from me, which was a harder feat than I imagined considering we were in water, and I looked once more into the eyes of this unrecognizable man. His eyes were a haunting blue, like the blue of a blind person, but even in their lifeless way, they stared at me, and I know I will never forget those eyes.
Everything that happened after that is still a bit fuzzy in my mind. I can now only remember images of that day. I remember making it on the shore and looking into the water to see it scattered with bodies, but they just weren't bodies; no, not to me. They were men, boys really, they were brothers, some were even expected fathers. They were cousins and sons, they were fiancées and boyfriends. They were friends and dreamers. No, they were not just bodies, they were soldiers. They were soldiers who signed up to fight, with patriotism running through their veins. They were soldiers that had never thought this would happen. They were soldiers who were drawn into this war by the allure of being something special, of being heroes. I can say with absolutely no hesitation that they accomplished one thing that day, the day of Sunday December 7th, 1941. They truly were heroes, and I will remember them as heroes.
My life after this day in Pearl Harbor was not an easy one. To this very day I am haunted by images. They are images of the war and images of those pale blue eyes. I later learned the name of this man who clung to me in blind hope. The man that I cast aside like the selfish adolescent I was. His name was Jasper Whitlock, and he grew up on a farm in the south before feeling called to the war. He was dating a young woman named Mary Alice, and he had his late grandmother's engagement ring back in a shoebox underneath his bed. He had planned to propose to her as soon as he got home.
My fiancée, the very one I had proposed to just hours before this tragedy, survived. I wish I could turn this story of cowardice into a romance by saying that we did get married, but we did not. I was too haunted and broken; PTSD is what they call it now. So Bella and I never were wed, but I heard she moved on. She got married five years later to a lawyer and she had three beautiful children. She's gone now, and I am truly alone.
After the war, the survivors were called "lucky" and "blessed to be alive", but this is no blessing at all. I can't help but think that the lucky ones are the ones whose names are written on a memorial. The ones who don't have to remember and be haunted every passing moment by their own minds. Yes, those are the lucky ones.