Funny you should mention Pearl Harbor, as I used to be based there. Each time our boat passed by Ford Island, on our way to or from "Papa Hotel", we rendered honors to USS Arizona (though it was quite a few hundred yards away from our course), and it was always sobering to remember that the men who went down with that ship were just like my buds on the boat.
Especially poignant for me, being a bubblehead, was the WWII Submarine Memorial at SUBASE, a nice little park with trees and grass, and which had monuments with plaques listing the ratings and names of the officers and crewmen of the 52 submarines lost during the war, "Still On Patrol". I used to go there (it's right down the hill from my old barracks) quite a bit, read the names, think about the men behind them and what it must have been like to go down in one of those pig boats, and I still can't think about it without getting pretty choked up.
My boat also came within a gnat's ass of joining them on one mission (I don't name my boat for security reasons), so I really have an appreciation for what a serious business being a sailor in our Navy is -- despite all the clowning around us squids are known for.
When Stark and Cole got hit, I felt it almost physically, like a wound to my body. The final moments of Thresher and Scorpion, not to mention some close ones on my boat, sometimes haunt my dreams. And I am not blind nor deaf to those who have died in so many "routine" operations over the years, either.
So when I see the clouds of war gathering, I know it ain't all fun and games. Sons and daughters of our great nation will die, and we should never cheapen their sacrifices by sending them forth in vain.
But God help those who wind up on the business end of our guns, missiles and torpedoes, because no one else can once the word is given!
And now, with a man of honor once again as CinC, a man who seems to understand what sea power is all about, knowing what it means to send our best into harm's way, and knowing why we must do so, I feel no compunctions in saying, with profound pride, to those who today carry on the Navy tradition with poise and distinction: