At one of the classroom buildings at Fort Knox, there were display cases in the hallways, featuring thick slabs of metal with holes in them. Amazing, and frightening at the same time.
Sometimes I go to the USS San Francisco Memorial above Land's End in San Francisco. The memorial includes a damaged section of the auxiliary bridge removed after the battle of Guadalcanal in 1942. There are gaping shell holes where Admiral Callaghan, Captain Young, and most of the bridge crew were killed during the battle.
I always get a little lump in my throat when I see that. That action was November 12, 1942 - less than a year after Pearl Harbor. Nothing was certain, those men went into battle and died in a fiery hail of steel, not knowing whether it was won or lost or whether the United States would prevail. But they gave all. After that battle the Japanese could not reinforce Guadalcanal and the Allies moved down the road another step towards victory over tyranny.
Sometimes I just stand there and look out to sea and wonder, could I stand there and do my job despite knowing a slice of hell is headed my way? Is it even sane to wonder about it, because should the time come would a moral person really have a choice to act otherwise and if fear takes you would you even be able to make a choice? I touch the edges of twisted metal and wonder how could anyone want such a thing to happen again? I pray it won't come to that, though I know it's not really up to us...It's as close as I come to praying these days.
