Twice By the Pacific

When I was in the shipping business, I went where my employer sent me.  Now that I’m in the family business, I go where my wife sends me.

Such were my thoughts in the evening of Wednesday, October 7, 2015, as the Alaska Airlines 737 maneuvered on its approach to the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport at the conclusion of a transcontinental flight from Boston.  This aerial voyage had taken me over Ontario, Manitoba, the Dakotas, Montana, Idaho, and Washington.  Finally, the aircraft descended and made a wide left turn which gave me a panoramic view of the region.  For the first time in 31 years I looked upon downtown Seattle, Puget Sound, the Olympic Peninsula, and the vast Pacific Ocean.  I had last seen this part of the world from the bridge of the freighter Comet in the spring of 1984.  After all this time, it felt good to be back.

But I would not remain long.  A connecting flight aboard another Alaska Airlines 737, this one a combination passenger and cargo airplane, conveyed me northwest from Seattle and out over the inky black Pacific to Anchorage, Alaska.  I had never been to Anchorage before; my employer had never sent me there.  Instead, my wife sent me there—to visit our son and daughter-in-law.  They had recently bought a house, and my assignment was to help them move their belongings.  At 3:45am on Thursday the 8^th, the plane touched down.  A few minutes later, my oldest son James met me inside the terminal and drove me to his new home.

It felt disconcerting at first, after traveling thousands of miles, to arrive in a place where the people spoke American-accented English, used American money, and flew the American flag.  A journey of similar distance but in the opposite direction from Boston would have yielded a much different result.  Several years spent making transoceanic voyages had accustomed me to this.  Today it felt odd to still be in the United States.  Soon enough, however, I would see subtle differences and become aware of Alaska’s cosmopolitan background.

For a few hours every day, we moved James’ and Sarah’s belongings from their previous residence to their new home.  The rest of the time we spent traveling and sightseeing.

Starting in Anchorage on Thursday, James and I visited Earthquake Park.  Named for the infamous earthquake that struck the region on Good Friday in 1964, this site offered an open view to the west, north, and northeast.  Across the water of the Cook Inlet stood downtown Anchorage with the snow-capped Chugach Range behind it.  A spectacular view, even on a damp and cloudy day.  In the city proper, we visited Resolution Park, which faced the opposite direction.  A life-sized statue of Captain James Cook of the Royal Navy looked to the west over the Cook Inlet, the waterway that bears his name and connects Anchorage with the open Pacific.

Captain Cook is an iconic figure in the history of Alaska.  Justly famous for his voyages of exploration in the vast Pacific Ocean, he and his crews made extensive surveys and drew detailed maps of the Alaskan coastline.  They carried out much of their Alaskan explorations aboard the Resolution and the Discovery during the summer of 1778, at the same time that their military colleagues were attempting to put down an armed colonial uprising on the eastern seaboard of North America.  I found it ironic that Alaska would one day join the country that was formed out of this rebellion.  For his work, Captain Cook came to be honored not only with this statue, but with a downtown luxury hotel named for him and with numerous wall murals in its lobby portraying his ships, their crews, and the sites they explored.  In the long history of seafaring, very few seamen have been honored with statues, let alone with buildings and paintings.[1]

Friday’s sightseeing took place south of Anchorage.  On the road to Whittier James and Sarah and I skirted the waterway known as Turnagain Arm.  Named thus by Captain Cook because his two ships needed to turn around in it repeatedly to avoid danger, Turnagain Arm extends inland but does not lead to the seaport of Whittier.  Instead, to reach Whittier we drove through a 2½ mile long combination railroad and highway tunnel cut through solid rock beneath the 4,100 feet high Maynard Mountain.  Emerging in Whittier, we  came upon its small but important harbor, situated on the western end of Passage Canal.  This is not really a canal, but an arm of the much larger Prince William Sound.  Cruise ships, ferries, and railroad barges serve this port, which is surrounded on all sides by the snow-capped Chugach Mountains.

Arriving shortly after we did was the ferry Aurora of the Alaska Marine Highway, the state’s coastwise ferry line. The Aurora backed gracefully into her berth, discharged and loaded passengers and vehicles, and then quietly got underway again.  Moored nearby were the main attractions for us, the tug Gulf Titan and the barge Anchorage Provider, operated by Western Towboat and Alaska Marine Lines, respectively.

The Gulf Titan was an ocean-going tugboat that towed railroad barges such as the Anchorage Provider.  These vessels are two of the fleet that runs the supply route between Whittier, Alaska, and Seattle, Washington.  The Anchorage Provider’s main deck consists of railroad tracks, and her upperworks holds shipping containers.  A shoreside crane would load and remove the containers on the top level, and railroad locomotives would push and pull the freight cars onto and off the main deck.  As I studied this vessel’s configuration,  I became impressed by her size.  A non-motorized barge, she measures 450 feet in length and 85 feet in breadth, large enough to accommodate eight railroad tracks each 420 feet long.  Fully loaded, she can carry 50 railroad cars and a combined total of 20,000 tons of rail cars and shipping containers with a draft of only 18 feet.  James explained his role as a railroad employee in the process of loading and unloading rail cars.  A precision operation, it requires an exact alignment of the barge’s rails with the shoreside rails, tolerates a ramp elevation of no more than a few degrees, and requires that the barge be kept on a even keel at all times.  Wind and sea conditions, even in this sheltered harbor, can wreak havoc with this delicate process.

Despite these constraints, this tug and barge operation serves as Alaska’s lifeline.  Consumer products of almost every description including food arrive in Whittier by sea and are then trucked or railroaded to Anchorage and other destinations.  In the opposite direction, railroad tank cars bring petroleum products to the “Lower 48.”  A fleet of three tug and barge units carry the seaborne commerce between Alaska and Washington.  Additional vessels operated by Foss Marine and the Canadian National Railway carry cargo between Alaska and British Columbia.  By comparison, the cargo carried by Alaska Airlines is a tiny fraction of that carried by sea, and consists of mostly small items and mail that need to be delivered quickly.

We did not see this operation in process, though.  On this particular day, the cargo loading had already been completed, and the Gulf Titan and the Anchorage Provider reposed quietly at their dock.  What they were waiting for remained unknown.  It likely was not the weather, which was quite mild.  Besides, that would not stop them.  James explained that the one way voyage between Alaska and Washington normally requires six days; in poor to extreme sea conditions, though, it can take ten to fifteen days.  Sailing on the open Pacific is not always a pacific experience, as I had learned aboard the Comet many years previously.

On Saturday we followed a different course.  I took a ride on the Alaska Railroad’s weekend Anchorage to Fairbanks train Aurora.  I rode only from Anchorage to Wasilla, though, a 1¼  hour long journey.  James followed the train in his automobile, and Sarah returned to work.  After a pleasant ride out of the city and through the woods and wetlands and with the snow-capped mountains always looming in the distance, I disembarked at the Wasilla station.  James was waiting for me on the platform.  We then returned to Anchorage, but with stops.  The first of these was at a locomotive shop, where a volunteer crew was restoring and rebuilding an Alaska Railroad steam locomotive, Number 557.  An ambitious project of several years’ duration, it is gradually nearing completion.  James had spent many hours working on this locomotive, but was off duty today.  He kept himself occupied with me instead.

Continuing back toward Anchorage, we stopped first at Lake Eklutna, a fresh water lake high in the mountains that provides the drinking water for the Municipality of Anchorage.  Next we visited the Saint Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church and Cemetery in Eklutna.  A beautiful little building topped in the Russian fashion with onion domes and Eastern-style three-armed suppedaneum crosses, Saint Nicholas occupied a small site and served as a spiritual haven in a very quiet rural area.  Much of the property contained the cemetery, itself a sight to behold.  Miniature houses painted in bright colors covered the individual graves.  James explained that these served to house the spirits of the deceased in the Russian tradition.  James further explained that when the Russians came to Alaska, they brought Christianity with them, and they passed it on to many of the native inhabitants.  To this day Russian Orthodoxy remains one of the most prevalent denominations of Christianity among the native Alaskan population. 

After returning to Anchorage, we stopped at three more churches.  The first and largest of these was the Saint Innocent Russian Orthodox Cathedral.  A large and fairly new but nonetheless very ornate structure, it featured a multiplicity of onion domes and suppedaneum crosses.  Similarly, the smaller Saint Nicholas of Myra Byzantine Catholic Church and Parish Hall also displayed onion domes and suppedaneum crosses.  I especially enjoyed seeing these distinctive symbols of Christianity from far-off Eastern Europe.  Some may regard them simply as cultural icons, but to me they demonstrate the universality of the Christian faith and its acceptance by the diverse peoples of the Earth, the result of the early Apostles heeding the Lord’s instruction to “Go therefore, and teach all nations…” (Matt. 28:19).  Finally, we went to see the Anchorage Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  Built in an architectural style vastly different from the Russian and Byzantine churches, it also expressed the spiritual character of its denomination, especially in the statue of the angel Moroni summoning the entire population of the world to enter its hallowed halls. 

Additionally, several Roman Catholic and Protestant churches stood in Anchorage, but with time in short supply, we unfortunately needed to prepare for my departure on Saturday night.  Three days in Alaska were quickly proving to be insufficient.  There remained so much more to see and do, including miles of rugged coastline and numerous sheltered harbors to explore.  But for now, I had the long aerial voyage home.

Shortly after midnight, I left Anchorage aboard an Alaska Airlines 737 bound for Portland, Oregon.  After takeoff the aircraft turned southeastward and flew over the Pacific Ocean.  Sitting by a window on the starboard side, I gazed down through the dark night at the dark sea.  It was faintly but definitely discernible.  As the airplane neared the Oregon coast, the gradual approach of dawn turned the vast Pacific from a dark to a medium gray.  From the air it appeared to be truly pacific, yet I thought of Robert Frost’s famous opening lines:

                        The shattered water made a misty din.

                        Great waves looked over others coming in,

                        And thought of doing something to the shore

                        That water never did to land before.[2]

And I thought of the thrashing the Comet had taken on her two-weeks-long return voyage from Japan in 1984.  She had made several port calls here on the American West Coast before and after sailing transpacific to and from the Far East.  I would love to make such a long voyage again, I daydreamed, perhaps aboard a Holland-America Line cruise ship!  For now, it simply felt good to be back, I reflected, as the aircraft turned east and headed overland to the Portland International Airport.

After a short layover, I left Portland early Sunday morning aboard another Alaska Airlines 737 bound across the continent for Boston.  Cloud cover hid the ground until the aircraft reached Montana.  There I saw for the first time this state where James had gotten his start in railroading. The farmlands of North Dakota, Minnesota, and Wisconsin followed.  Then the airplane passed over the Great Lakes.  Looking south, I enjoyed a breathtaking view of Lake Michigan, then Michigan itself, Lake Huron, and the Niagara Peninsula of Ontario with Niagara Falls and the Welland Canal clearly visible.  Lake Erie reached to the horizon in the south.  Finally, the aircraft passed over Lake Ontario and then upstate New York.  On the approach to Logan Airport in the late afternoon, the pilots took the airplane east over the Atlantic Ocean and then made a wide left turn to land into the northwest.  A long and bumpy descent over the bright blue and calm sea followed, and then the plane touched down.  Despite the inability to attend church, it was a restful and spiritual Sabbath for me, flying over and imbibing the magnificence of the Pacific, the Great Lakes, and the Atlantic all on the same day!

On the bus to New Hampshire, my thoughts returned to the Pacific.  I felt a sense of gratitude for all my experiences on the great waterways of the world.  Somehow, though, the Pacific was different, and ironically, I had never intended to go there.  When the Comet arrived in New Orleans in December of 1983, I spoke with the powers-that-be at company headquarters about returning to the Waccamaw in the Mediterranean, as had been the original plan when I went on vacation.  This plan was nixed, however.  I remained aboard the Comet, transited the Panama Canal, and crossed the great Pacific.  My initial disappointment about this went away quickly, and now I’m very grateful that I stayed the course.  And I wish I could do it again!

From Panama to Korea, from the Comet to the Anchorage Provider, and from Alaska Airlines to the Alaska Railroad, the Pacific has repeatedly opened up a world of new adventures for me.  I’m thankful for these unexpected but happy experiences, and I think  of the scriptural injunction to  “live in thanksgiving daily, for the many mercies and blessings which he doth bestow upon you” (Alma 34:38).

Between my employer and my wife sending me away on long voyages, I owe a lot in thanksgiving.

---

[1] I personally know of three other statues of seamen:  Captain Rafael Semmes of the Confederate States Navy in Mobile, Alabama, Admiral David Glasgow Farragut of the United States Navy in Madison Square Park in New York, and Capitano Cristoforo Colombo in Genova.  There may be others, though.

[2] Robert Frost, “Once by the Pacific,” in The Poetry of Robert Frost, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1969, p. 250.

Faith and Reason

In the long history of mankind’s search for Truth, much has been written and more has been said about the dichotomy of faith and reason.  For many people, the two stand poles apart as mutually exclusive contraries.  One can have faith but not use reason, or one can reason and thereby be faithless.  More moderate minds find a common ground between faith and reason, and view them not as opposites but as complements.  Faith can inform reason, and reason can guide faith.  But which comes first?  The Church asserts that faith must precede reason.  A while ago the Church News editorialized:

The prophets have counseled us to put faith first as we strive to reconcile faith and reason.  This life is a test of faith, not Intelligence Quotient. We must put our faith first as we seek learning.¹

Interestingly, we are counseled to do two things here: first, to have faith; second, to seek learning.  While this seems a simple enough instruction, having faith first is often easier said than done.  For many, the seeking of faith occurs simultaneously with the seeking of learning.  The Lord provided for this predicament in his counsel,

And as all have not faith, seek ye diligently and teach one another words of wisdom; yea, seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom, seek learning even by study and by faith (D&C 109:7).

There are many “best books” in the Western canon, and their authors typically draw upon both faith and reason as both contraries and complements.  In many philosophical arguments, the pendulum swings to extremes of faith and reason.  In the most successful religious philosophies, the pendulum comes to rest in the center, and the conclusion reached incorporates both faith and reason.  When the philosopher’s conclusion matches the student’s life experience, the result can forge a stronger testimony, as a brief example will show.

During innumerable hours of navigational duty aboard many ships, I had the experience of observing and using the movements of the heavenly bodies to make myriad mathematical calculations.  These bodies—the stars, the planets, the sun, the moon—move with such scientific precision that their motions can be predicted and applied to accurately determine a vessel’s position at sea within a quarter-mile.  Additionally, these celestial movements are used to determine compass error within a fraction of a degree and times of tides accurate to the minute.  These heavenly bodies have no intelligence of their own.  They do not speak; they merely move.  Yet for all their seeming simplicity, these movements are clearly orchestrated.  The precise and reliable path of the sun, for example, rising from one horizon, crossing the meridian, and dropping down to the opposite horizon—not to mention the simple yet magnificent beauty of the ocean that it colors and illuminates—stands as a mute witness to the creative genius of a Supreme Being.  Standing on the bridge wing of a ship at sea, one comes to know through the silent witness of the stars on a clear night that the Spirit of the Lord really does stand watch over the deep.  The heavens themselves build one’s testimony.

This testimony, a product of faith, later became strengthened through reason.  The navigator’s observations were not unique; on the contrary, they existed already in a more articulate form in one of the “best books.”  After I left the sea and became a student of philosophy, I studied the Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas.  Arguing from reason, this great philosopher proved the existence of God in five different ways.  One of these ways, the Argument by Design, happily matched my experiences aboard ship:

We see that things that lack intelligence, such as natural bodies, act for an end, and this is evident from their acting always, or nearly always, in the same way, so as to obtain the best result.  Hence it is plain that not fortuitously, but designedly, do they achieve their end.  Now whatever lacks intelligence cannot move towards an end, unless it be directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence; as the arrow is shot to its mark by the archer.  Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we call God.²

In the scriptures, the Lord himself concurred with and elaborated upon this line of reasoning, and in a revelation given to the Prophet Joseph Smith he explained:

And their courses are fixed, even the courses of the heavens and the earth, which comprehend the earth and all the planets.  And they give light to each other in their times and in their seasons, in their minutes, in their hours, in their days, in their weeks, in their months, in their years—all these are one year with God, but not with man.  The earth rolls upon her wings, and the sun giveth his light by day, and the moon giveth her light by night, and the stars also give their light, as they roll upon their wings in their glory, in the midst of the power of God.  Behold, all these are kingdoms, and any man who hath seen any or the least of these hath seen God moving in his majesty and power (D&C 88:43-45, 47).

A testimony grounded in faith is strong in itself.  The same testimony nourished by reason becomes even stronger.  Faith and reason combined, then, lead the searching soul to the Lord.³

---

¹ “Faith before reason,” Church News, July 28, 2001, p. 18.

² St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, tr. English Dominican Fathers, New York: Benziger Brothers, Inc., 1947, v.1, p. 14.

³ Author’s note: A shorter version of this essay originally appeared under the title “Fides et Ratio” in The Nashua 2^nd Ward Newsletter on October 28, 2001.  Subsequently, I incorporated a portion of it into “The Second Mate,” which appeared in Children of the Sea, Children of the Lord on my blog.  I am pleased to present it here in its entirety for the first time.

The Dead

The Waccamaw sat quietly alongside one of the supply piers at the naval base in Norfolk.  There was very little activity on board.  Many of the men had gone ashore, and the mood among those who remained aboard was introspective and philosophical.  With good reason, too.  The Waccamaw had sailed from this same pier the day before, but on seeing the violent state of the weather on the open ocean had turned around and returned to port.  Since then, however, news of the most tragic sort was received concerning the fate of another ship that had not turned around when confronted with this storm.  This other ship was the 605 foot long coal carrier Marine Electric.

Operated by Marine Transport Lines, the Marine Electric had sailed from Norfolk with a full load of coal and a crew of 34 shortly before midnight on Thursday, February 10, 1983.  She dropped off the pilot at the Chesapeake Bay entrance at about 2:00am on Friday, February 11, and once clear of the traffic lanes, set a course to the northeast toward her destination of Somerset, Massachusetts.  The weather conditions into which the Marine Electric sailed were poor and rapidly deteriorating.¹

The Waccamaw sailed several hours later, between 8:00 and 9:00 in the morning of Friday, February 11.  Captain Derric F. Linardich, substituting for Captain Rigobello who was on vacation, commanded the ship for this voyage.  Scheduled to remain at sea for a week, the Waccamaw would be conducting underway refueling of several Navy ships in the western Atlantic.  Then she would return to Norfolk for tank cleaning and a shipyard overhaul.  Fully cognizant of the sea conditions and the weather forecast, the powers that be in Norfolk had authorized Captain Linardich to proceed to sea or not according to his assessment of the sea state upon arrival at the pilot station at the Chesapeake Bay entrance.

The weather in Norfolk and on the Chesapeake Bay that morning involved a low overcast, a strong, cold wind from the northeast, a short, choppy sea, and intermittent precipitation.  The Waccamaw sailed into the teeth of this fury as she headed eastward toward the Atlantic.  On arrival at the pilot station where the Chesapeake met the open ocean, the weather conditions became more intense.  The Atlantic was very rough with high winds and heavy seas.  Even allowing for the time of year, the sea conditions were much more violent than usual.  Captain Linardich studied the scene before him as the Waccamaw sailed past the Cape Henry Lighthouse toward the head of the traffic lanes where she would drop off the pilot.  He had serious reservations about continuing to sea, and he shared his concerns with the pilot and with me, his second mate.  We could say what we thought, but the decision to proceed or turn back was the Captain’s and no one else’s.  With a very serious expression on his face, Captain Linardich stared into the storm as if transfixed by it.  Then he announced his decision.  The Waccamaw would make a u-turn around the CBJ (Chesapeake Bay Junction) buoy at the head of the traffic lanes and return to Norfolk.  The old ship would sit this one out.  The same pilot remained on board and brought the ship on a reverse course through the lower Chesapeake.  Two hours later, the Waccamaw came back alongside her pier and was made fast.

Later that afternoon with most of the crew ashore, Captain Linardich lamented to me over dinner about the ship’s inability to “keep her commitments” to the Navy in such weather.  The mission missed had not been a critical one, though.  Furthermore, the Waccamaw had not been carrying a full load of oil, and a half-full-half-empty hull would guarantee a rough ride at best in that weather.  Carrying out an underway refueling with smaller and lighter military vessels in such sea conditions would have been extremely difficult and dangerous—unnecessarily so, in fact, since it was an exercise and not a fuel shortage emergency.  So his decision to opt out of the mission and return to port had been a sound one.  No one could fault him for choosing safety over unnecessary risk.

With the ship safely moored and the decks quiet, I slept for a while before taking over the watch from midnight to 8:00am on Saturday, February 12.  The weather continued to howl over the Atlantic.  Secure and warm in port, though, I scarcely gave it a thought until much later in the day when the first news reports came in.

On her voyage north, the Marine Electric plowed into an intensifying weather system.  Wave heights and wind speeds increased, but the ship sailed steadily on—just another rough night on the Atlantic.  But then something unexpected happened.  During the night of Saturday, February 12, when I was safely in port and on watch aboard the Waccamaw, the Marine Electric started taking on water as the waves crashed over her foredeck.  Seawater accumulated in her cargo holds, eventually causing the ship to capsize and sink.²  Unable to successfully launch lifeboats, most of the crew ended up in the water.³  Distress calls had been sent out over the radio, but by the time assistance arrived, all but three of the thirty-four crewmen had perished. In forty-five degree water, twenty foot waves, twenty-eight degree air, and forty knot winds, these men had almost no hope of survival.⁴  That three of them did in fact survive was incredible.

These news reports came in piecemeal and were sketchy at first, but in time they became more clear and accurate.  Aboard the Waccamaw, the reports of what had happened to the Marine Electric were horrifying, and all the more so because the Waccamaw had followed her into the same storm but had turned around and come back to port!  Many of us were simply stunned by this news.  What could anyone say?  The bottom line of the tragedy spoke for itself and needed no commentary.  A merchant ship had sunk with horrendous loss of life.  That we had been in the neighborhood, so to speak, only compounded the grief.

In general, merchant seamen do not like to talk about shipwrecks.  The loss of the Marine Electric was discussed only minimally aboard the Waccamaw.  I did not mention it in letters or telephone calls home.  I vaguely remember telling my wife about it in private some time afterwards.  Despite this reticence, however, events such as these are never forgotten.  The circumstances of the Waccamaw’s departure and immediate return to port because of the storm highlight and even personalize to a degree the loss of the Marine Electric and her crew, even though I did not know any of them.  This is the brotherhood of the sea.

In the Marine Board of Investigation that convened to ascertain the cause of this tragedy, it was revealed that the Marine Electric had been allowed to sail in an unseaworthy condition on numerous voyages.  The old ship was plagued with leaky hatch covers, cracked deck plates, inoperable watertight doors, and makeshift repairs, among other faults.⁵  In this sense, then, the ship was an accident waiting to happen.  Litigation and regulatory reform resulted from the disaster, and in the end much good was achieved in the updating and improvement of safety standards aboard American merchant ships.⁶  But at what a price in human life!

Unfortunately, the loss of the Marine Electric was not the only tragedy to befall the Merchant Marine in my time.  Three years earlier, on October 24, 1980, the 522 foot long cargo ship Poet, operated by the Hawaiian Eugenia Corp., departed Philadelphia bound for Port Said, Egypt, with a load of corn.  After she dropped off her pilot near Cape Henlopen, at the entrance of the Delaware Bay, the Poet was never seen nor heard from again.  She simply disappeared without a trace somewhere on the Atlantic Ocean.  Her entire crew of 34 perished with her.⁷  A former school acquaintance of mine, Mark S. Henthorne, was the third assistant engineer aboard the Poet.⁸  I believe he was 24 years old when he was lost with the ship.  Despite an extensive search for survivors and debris along her intended route by the Coast Guard, nothing was ever found.⁹  At the time of the Poet’s sailing and disappearing, I was berthed in comparative comfort and safety aboard the survey ship Wilkes, which was undergoing repair work in Norfolk.

After the loss of the Poet, it was revealed that she, too, had a very poor maintenance record and that she had also made numerous voyages in an unseaworthy condition.  But with no tangible evidence, it could not be established in a Marine Board of Investigation that this was the cause of the Poet’s demise.¹⁰  In the case of the Marine Electric, however, the deteriorated physical condition of the ship was demonstrated to be the cause of her loss.  Her sinking was a preventable accident, caused by ill-fitting and leaking hatch covers that enabled seawater coming over the bow to drain into the cargo holds.¹¹  The Waccamaw, which by comparison was very well maintained, would not have experienced this problem if she had continued to sea.  But such forensic analysis does not change the bottom line facts.  In the two shipwrecks of the Poet and the Marine Electric, 65 merchant seamen perished.  Their families suffered grievous loses.

The Merchant Marine as an institution suffered grievous loses, too.  Despite the seamen’s natural reluctance to discuss such events in casual conversation, these deaths were felt.  Everyone knew someone or knew someone else who knew someone who was lost.  All these men, whether they were personally known to each other or not, were involved with the sea and formed a part of the brotherhood of the sea.  Their loss was therefore a loss to all.

Perhaps the English metaphysical poet and Anglican clergyman John Donne said it best:

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.  If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were.  Any man’s death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind.¹²

In this broader sense, then, it is not only fellow seamen who are diminished by the loss of life aboard the Poet and the Marine Electric, but all humanity.  Happily, however, using a literary analogy, the author sees a bright conclusion to the tragedy of death:

All mankind is of one author and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated.  God employs several translators; but God’s hand is in every translation.¹³

It is easy to see the Christian belief in the brotherhood of mankind above and beyond the brotherhood of the sea in these lines.  For this reason, Dr. Donne argues, when the bell tolls for the dead at a funeral or a memorial service, it really tolls for those still living who are diminished by the other’s death:

Therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.¹⁴

Because we are brothers and sisters and because we are involved with mankind, we want to bring all of our fellows to a knowledge of the Lord and his gospel.  For he has told us;

I am the way, and the truth, and the life: no one cometh unto the father but by me (John 14:6).

Furthermore, we want to give all of our fellows, both the living and the “translated,” the opportunity to receive the fullness of this knowledge and reach their maximum potential even above and beyond the “better language” that Dr. Donne envisioned.  This we do in the temple.  The Lord has entrusted to us the opportunity and the obligation to carry out his work in the temple in order to facilitate bringing all his people, both the living and the dead, back to him.  With the tragic loss of the Poet and the Marine Electric, there are now 65 “translated” merchant seamen who stand in need of having their temple ordinances done for them.  Though they are dead, it is not too late; their spirits live on and wait.  Their last voyage remains yet unfinished.

After the sinkings of these two ships, funerals and memorial services were held in various locations.  Some of these were religious, some secular.  One in particular for the crew of the Marine Electric stands out.  This took place at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy in Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts.  As the name of each deceased crewman was spoken, a ship’s bell tolled once.¹⁵  It tolled for the dead, of course, and it tolled for the living as well who were diminished by the deaths of the men for whom they grieved.

I would like to think that this bell also tolled for every temple-attending Latter-day Saint, not as a call to mourning but as a call to action.  So many millions of people have lived and died on this Earth who need to have their temple work done for them.  Now, two ships have been lost and 65 men have perished at sea.  They, too, need to have their temple work done.  The tolling of the bell is the summons.  It is calling us to the temple so that we may turn tragedy into triumph.

---

¹ Robert Frump, Until the Sea Shall Free Them: Life, Death, and Survival in the Merchant Marine, New York: Doubleday, 2001, pp. 20-22.

² Frump, op. cit., p. 34-37, 55.

³ Frump, op. cit., p. 48, 54-55, and Associated Press, “3 Crewmen Survive Loss of Coal Vessel; Fate of 8 Uncertain,” The New York Times, Feb. 13, 1983, at http://www.nytimes.com.

⁴ Frump, op. cit., p. 23, 55, and Associated Press, op. cit.

⁵ Frump, op. cit., p. 172-173, 177-179, 211-218; Associated Press, “Doomed Ship’s Crewman Tells An Inquiry of Holes in Hatches,” The New York Times, Feb. 17, 1983, and “Crewmen Testify about Surviving Ship’s Sinking, The New York Times, Feb. 20, 1983, both at http://www.nytimes.com.

⁶ Frump, op. cit., p. 315-318, 326-327, 341.

⁷ Author unknown, “Remembering the Poet, 26 Years Later,” Seafarers Log, Dec., 2006, at http://www.seafarers.org.  This is the newsletter of the Seafarers International Union.

⁸ Robert J. Pessek, The Poet Vanishes: An American Voyage, n.p., 1^st Books Library, 2000, p. xi, and U.S. Coast Guard, “Marine Casualty Report: SS Poet: Disappearance in the Atlantic Ocean after Departure from Cape Henlopen, Delaware on 24 October 1980 with Loss of Life,” at http://www.uscg.mil/hq/cg5/docs/boards/poet.pdf.  This is the report of the Marine Board of Investigation.

⁹ “Remembering the Poet,” loc. cit., and United Press International, “Planes Seek Missing Ship with 33 Americans Aboard,” The New York Times, Nov. 11, 1980, at http://www.nytimes.com.

¹⁰ Frump, op. cit., p. 171-172, 197-198, and “Marine Casualty Report,” loc. cit.

¹¹ Frump, op. cit., p. 299-300.

¹² John Donne, “Meditation XVII,” in The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume 1, New York:  W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1962, p. 795.

¹³ Ibid.

¹⁴Ibid.

¹⁵ Frump, op cit., p.206.

The Captain and the Cadet

The Piedmont Airlines 737 lifted off from the runway at LaGuardia Airport in New York in the mid-morning of May 6, 1979, and then turned south toward its destination of Norfolk, Virginia.  I sat nervously in a window seat on the port side, my brand new third mate’s license safely lodged in my jacket pocket.  A classmate of mine, Owen Clarke, occupied the seat directly in front of me.  To my right sat a middle-aged and well-dressed black couple, the husband in the middle seat next to me and his wife in the aisle seat next to him.  Beyond saying “Hello” when they had come aboard, I scarcely gave them a thought.

Owen and I had completed our training and had been issued our third mate’s licenses only a week earlier on April 28.  As newly hired employees, we were enroute to Norfolk to attend more school.  We had a week of shipboard helicopter operations instruction ahead of us.  After that, I would join the cargo ship Rigel, which was docked in Norfolk.  She would soon sail for Mediterranean ports.  Owen would be assigned to a tanker.¹

I think Owen was as nervous as I was—possibly more so.  Once the aircraft had left New York, he started turning around in his seat to speak to me.  No sooner did he finish what he had to say than he would turn around again to tell me something else or ask me a question or just make a random comment.  I wanted only to sit quietly and look out the window, but Owen twisted and turned in his seat so much and had so much to say to me that this became impossible.  This commotion did not go unnoticed by the man sitting next to me.  He and his wife had been sitting very quietly, and of course, they could hear everything.  Finally, with his curiosity piqued, he turned to me and said, “Excuse me.  Where are you fellows going?”

Owen answered before I could make a sound and let out a torrent of fast flowing speech about flying to Norfolk, attending helicopter school, shipping out as new third mates, etc., etc., etc.  When the other passenger could finally get in a second remark, he spoke well-articulated standard English in an assertive but kind manner which to a considerable degree silenced my companion.  And with good reason.

This man was an employee of our company and had been for many years.  He knew our destination of Norfolk very well, and he also knew about the Rigel, her itinerary, the helicopter school, and everything else that there was to know.  He was a seaman.  He had sailed on all varieties of ships, but he expressed a particular fondness for those that did the underway replenishment of military vessels.  “I like unrep the best,” he asserted.  “It’s the most exciting.”  His face brightened with a broad smile and a warm expression in his eyes as he spoke affectionately of ships and the sea.  As he addressed us I noticed his wife gazing at him lovingly.  The look on her face clearly identified her as a seaman’s wife.  No words were necessary.  Anyone connected with the sea could tell that she loved her husband and understood both him and his passion for ships and the sea.  No doubt she missed him when he was away, but for the moment she seemed to savor the warm glow of his presence.

Taking an interest in Owen and me, this kind-hearted gentleman told us a bit about Norfolk, the helicopter school, the residence where we would eat and sleep, the paperwork we would need to fill out, the people in the office to contact should we need anything, and so on.  He asked about our anticipated shipboard assignments, and gave us some pointers on what they would be like and what we should expect.  This man was full of information about the way our fleet and everything that supported it worked, and he freely shared his knowledge with us.

This conversation lasted for most of the flight to Norfolk.  During this time the three cabin attendants—all young, white, and female—came down the aisle to serve beverages and snacks and afterwards to collect used cups and food wrappers.  When they stopped at our seats this man spoke to these young ladies with conspicuous courtesy.  He nodded and smiled.  He said, “Good morning, Miss,” and “Yes, please, Miss,” and “Thank you very much, Miss.”  His wife did likewise.  In a society that is often lacking in basic good manners, someone who displays such a level of courtesy does not go unnoticed.

As the aircraft began its approach to the runway in Norfolk, this gentleman and Owen and I started bidding each other farewell.  By this time Owen had become fairly quiet and I was doing more of the talking.  I asked this man if he was joining a ship and going back to sea.  No, he was on his way to an unrep conference.  Then I asked him, “What do you sail as?” That is to say, what was his job aboard ship?

For a few seconds, he hesitated.  In that brief interval I noticed a new expression come over his wife’s face.  She beamed at him with obvious pride and admiration.  Then, very quietly, as if he didn’t really want to own up to it in public, he answered, “As Captain.  I’m a Captain.”

I was stunned.  I never would have guessed!  A great man travelling incognito, I thought, and the new look on his wife’s face suddenly made sense to me.  I then asked him, “What’s your name, sir?”  The “sir” came out automatically on learning that he was a Captain.

“Gill,” he replied.  “Leroy Gill.”  I told him my name, and we shook hands, and suddenly I felt the utmost respect for him.  Now that his incognito was gone I saw him more completely for what he was: a seaman who had risen to the top of his profession; a black man who had made it in a white man’s world; an officer and a gentleman who was not proud of his rank but humble about his achievements, friendly and helpful to two novices, and respectful and considerate toward women.  He had even taken the awkward middle seat so that his wife could sit more comfortably next to the aisle.  After the airplane landed and we got ready to disembark, I thanked him for his help, wished him well at his conference, and made it a point to address him as “Captain Gill” and his wife as “Mrs. Gill.”  They reciprocated the pleasantries, and we went our separate ways.

No doubt Captain and Mrs. Gill had noticed this increased level of respect once I knew who they were.  I wonder what they said to each other about it later after Owen and I were gone.  In all likelihood it had happened before.  In any event, I never saw them again.  Later on I heard through the company scuttlebutt that he had transferred to the Pacific fleet.  I had hoped that I might sail with Captain Gill at some point in my career, but unfortunately never did so.

Many years later, on July 3, 2002, the tables were turned.  The school ship State of Maine came to Portland, Maine, for several days in observance of the Fourth of July, and she was open for public tours.  This was not the old State of Maine on which I had sailed, though.  That vessel had been retired, and a new State of Maine had taken her place.  Wanting to see this new ship, I drove to Portland with my three sons, James, Steven, and Michael.

The open house started at 1:00pm.  To my surprise, it was very lightly attended.  Then someone told us that the previous day the ship had been swamped with an enormous crowd of visitors.  This worked to our advantage.  With no one waiting in line behind us, we could take as short or as long a tour as we wanted.  Presently a first-year female cadet arrived at the head of the gangway on the port side where we were waiting.  I regret that I cannot recall her name.  Anyway, she was assigned to guide us on our tour of the new State of Maine, explain the workings of the ship, and answer any questions that we had.  She greeted us very politely and welcomed us aboard.  Then she led us around the ship.

I had led these tours aboard the old State of Maine when I was this young lady’s age, so I knew the routine.  She had a set route around the vessel that she took and a more or less set speech that she delivered to all the tourists.  I’m sure that she had conducted these tours many times in the various ports the ship had visited in her months on board, just as I had done many years ago.  I’m also sure that she regarded us as just another group of sightseers.  And I wanted it that way, too.  I did not want to attract any attention to myself, so before we even went on board I had told the boys not to say anything about my connection to the old State of Maine or my having gone to sea at all.  I just wanted them to see the ship and have a good time while I quietly maintained my incognito.

The cadet led us aft along the port side of the ship toward the stern, then through the upper part of the engine room, and then through some of the common areas such as the mess hall and the lounge and the gym.  Then we went out on deck again along the starboard side.  As we followed the cadet through all these areas of the ship she explained everything that we were seeing.  She was very polite and courteous, and she represented the State of Maine very professionally.  I knew from my own experience, however, that she was doing this for probably the 500^th time and that we were just more anonymous faces in the crowd to her.  But as we gathered on the starboard side amidships this changed.

Seeing a set of bitts and a couple of chocks on the deck, one of my sons pointed and asked me, “Daddy, what are these things for?”  Without giving the matter a second thought, I explained what they were and described how the mooring lines are led through the chocks and then wrapped around the bitts when the ship is being secured alongside a pier.  This response elicited a few additional questions that required some additional explanation.  James and Steven were especially interested in this.  Michael, the youngest, was less so.  As I started answering the initial question, I noticed the cadet glance at me with a somewhat puzzled expression on her face.  Then she and Michael disappeared from my view.  When we concluded this brief question and answer session, our tour of the ship continued.

The cadet next led us into the forward house, up to the bridge and chartroom, which I found especially interesting, then forward to the bow, and finally back to the head of the gangway on the port side.  She remained every bit as professional and courteous as she had been previously, but now with an added measure.  She looked at all of us differently, took a much more obvious interest in showing us the rest of the ship, and added “sir” to everything she said to me.  I wondered what this was all about.  Then, her curiosity apparently piqued, she asked me, “Did you sail on the old State of Maine, sir?  The old Upshur?”²

I replied that I had, and quietly concluded that she had been taking notes during my brief explanation of the bitts and chocks to my sons.  So now she knew that I was an alumnus; so much for maintaining my incognito.  She asked me several questions about my time on the older ship and my career afterwards.  I in turn asked about her progress in the training program, and we enjoyed a very pleasant conversation.  As we spoke she encouraged us to linger in the different parts of the ship as long as we liked.  I accepted this offer on the bridge and in the chartroom—my favorite parts of any ship—and once again I was called upon to explain several things to my sons.  When the tour at last came to its conclusion at the head of the gangway, she asked me,  “Is there anything else you’d like to see, sir?  Can I do anything else for you, sir?”

I assured her that she had done an excellent job of showing us the ship and thanked her for her hospitality.  My sons thanked her, too, and we shook hands and wished each other well.  Down on the pier again, my sons and I paused to have a last look at the ship and take some pictures.  I remarked offhandedly to them, “I wonder how she figured out that I was a seaman and a graduate of the old State of Maine?”

Then young Michael spilled it all.  “Daddy, when you were telling James and Steven about that stuff on the ship I told her, ‘My Daddy’s a chief mate and he has a Captain’s license.’”

So that explained it!  With the enthusiasm of youth, Michael had disregarded my instructions to remain silent and proudly bragged about me instead!  Well, that was very sweet of him.  What he couldn’t realize, of course, was that while what he told the cadet was technically correct, my Master’s license was a limited-tonnage endorsement and not the unlimited “big license” that this young lady most likely thought he meant.  So Michael made me seem quite a bit more important than I really was!

Without realizing it, young Michael had also proved a point.  This very nice young lady had spoken to us one way when she knew us only as mere tourists, but in an altogether different and more deferential way when she came to perceive me as a Captain.  And I had done the exact same thing years earlier with Captain Gill.  In a sense then, we are what other people think we are.  But this is not nearly as important as what the Lord knows we are: his children.  As such, all people should treat each other with the respect and kindness due children of God.  This respect is not based on rank, social status, professional achievement, or anything else of the secular world.  Instead, it is based on a respect for God himself.

President Gordon B. Hinckley expressed this thought very well:

Let it be taught that we are all children of God and that as surely as there is fatherhood, there can and must be brotherhood.  Conflict among the races and ethnic groups will fade when all of us recognize that we are all part of one great family, valued equally by the Almighty.³

In agreement with President Hinckley, Father Theodore Hesburgh, the President of the University of Notre Dame, further elaborated on this thinking:

All human beings are our brothers and sisters, all are our neighbors.  It matters not whether they are white or black, red or yellow, Eastern or Western, Northern or Southern, young or old, intelligent or dull, good or bad, attractive or repulsive.  We are all created in the image of God.⁴

This is not to say, however, that we should not be respectful of one another’s secular positions.  It seems only natural and appropriate to be respectful toward those who fill important leadership roles, bear heavy burdens of responsibility, risk their lives to ensure public safety, make major contributions to the improvement of society, or achieve success in a demanding profession.  Most people would see this as common sense and common courtesy and behave appropriately.  A few, however, cross the line that separates sincere respectfulness from the artificial and self-serving respect of sycophancy.

A couple moved into our ward during my tenure as a counselor in the Bishopric.  They came because the husband’s employer transferred him to a new job in town.  I had considerable contact with him and got to know him fairly well—I thought.  He was always very friendly toward me.  Whenever he saw me he went out of his way to come over to me, greet me, shake hands with me, and chat amiably.  He always had something pleasant to say—an interesting story to tell, or a laudatory remark to make about my calling, my family, my son’s mission, etc.  Others told me that he spoke very highly of me to them.

Then the Bishopric was reorganized.  I was released and called into a position of significantly less responsibility.  This is commonplace in the Church; members move up and down the “calling scale” all the time.  Soon after assuming my new duties I noticed that this man who had previously been so attentive to me was now ignoring me.  There were no more friendly greetings, no more pleasant conversations, and certainly no more obsequious praise.  When he would look directly at me without the slightest expression of recognition and then walk away to speak with the new Bishop or one of the new counselors, I realized that all his prior friendliness had been fake.  Because I was no longer a counselor in the Bishopric and no longer in a position to be useful to him, I was no longer worthy of his attention.

Captain Leroy Gill saw things differently, however.  Even though we were neophyte third mates, he deemed Owen and me worthy of his attention.  We could not possibly have done anything to advance his career—and he knew that—yet he took an interest in us and very graciously counseled us at the start of our careers.  I appreciated his kindness and respected him for his professional achievements and the burdens that he carried aboard ship, and I expressed this respect in the way I spoke to him and his wife.

The young cadet aboard the State of Maine likewise showed me the same respect that I had shown Captain Gill.  As I had viewed him she no doubt regarded me, at least, as my son Michael had described me to her.  Despite my initial reluctance to have attention drawn to myself, I was happy to speak with her and encourage her in her professional training.  I hope, at the least, that she remembered my family as one of the more pleasant and better behaved tour groups that she escorted around the ship. 

While I continue to respect the man in our ward as a child of God, I cannot help but respect the Captain and the cadet much more because they are children of God with integrity.  They behaved kindly and respectfully toward others without engaging in the “subtle craftiness of men” (D&C 123:12) for self-serving purposes.

---

¹ We never sailed together subsequently, but I did see Owen Clarke from time to time in different parts of the world.  To his great credit, he passed the examinations and received the unlimited license as Master at the very young age of 27.   This was a truly outstanding accomplishment.

² The old State of Maine had previously served the federal government as the troop transport Upshur, carrying American soldiers to and from Europe and the Far East.  

³ Gordon B. Hinckley, Discourses of President Gordon B. Hinckley, Volume 2, Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2005, p. 630.

⁴ Theodore M. Hesburgh, God, Country, Notre Dame, New York: Doubleday, 1990, p. x.

The Captain

One of the senior Captains in our fleet was returning home sooner than expected from a long shipboard assignment.  He had been away at sea for many months, almost a year, and to his pleasant surprise he was being relieved early in the Far East and sent home by air.  Since his family was not expecting him for quite some time still, he thought that he would arrive unannounced and that his homecoming would be a pleasant surprise for everyone.  His children had all grown up and moved out of the family home, so the Captain anticipated some time with his wife before he saw his children.  With these thoughts in mind, he did not call ahead.  When his aircraft landed at JFK, he simply took a taxi from the airport to his house on Staten Island.

The Captain’s wife, like many wives of merchant seamen, held power of attorney in order to manage the family’s business affairs.  She could legally sign papers, borrow money, and buy and sell property for her husband.  In this era preceding the instant personal communications revolution of emailing, texting, and cell phoning, power of attorney served as an important business tool which eliminated the need to chase down a husband’s authorization and signature from the other side of the world in order to effect a local business transaction.  It was also a measure of trust.  The Captain and his wife had known each other since their childhood in Brooklyn and had been married for over thirty years.  He had long ago placed his complete trust and confidence in her.

The taxi crossed the Verrazano Bridge, drove into the suburbanized hills of Staten Island, and pulled up in front of the Captain’s large house.  In his long career at sea, he had done well financially and had been able to provide very comfortably for his wife and their several children.  Collecting his luggage from the taxi and extracting a key from his pocket, the Captain went up to his house, opened the front door, and let himself in.

To his great surprise, a man whom he had never seen before jumped up from the couch, tossed aside a newspaper, and challenged him belligerently.  “Hey, buddy!  Whaddya think you’re doing, just walking into my house like this?  Who are you?  Whaddya want here?”

Startled by this unexpected and unpleasant greeting, the Captain replied in kind, “What am I doing here?  What are you doing here?  This is my house!  Who are you?”

This exchange grew more heated as it continued and was on the verge of becoming a fistfight when suddenly both men realized that there was more going on here than met the eye.  The man with the newspaper understood that his visitor, arriving with suitcases and a front door key, was not trying to rob him.  The Captain, thoroughly confused by this stranger claiming ownership to the house, did not understand how this could be.  Calming down and discussing this bewildering situation rationally, both men soon discovered the truth of the matter.

As it turned out, the stranger with the newspaper was right.  It really was his house.  The Captain’s wife had sold it to him several months previously and then moved out.  She had not notified her husband of this, nor had she told him where she was now living.  He eventually found her by going to his children, who told him the whole sad story.  After selling the house, the wife had moved in with someone else, and now that the Captain was back in the United States, she could legally file for divorce.  After a lifetime of exclusive affection and complete trust, the Captain was devastated.

In shipboard parlance, the Captain’s wife “took him to the cleaners,” meaning that she and her lawyer cleaned him out financially.  This was not difficult, given her power of attorney.  Furthermore, most of their major assets such as their automobiles and their banking were in her name.  This was another common practice among seamen, one that facilitated such transactions as car registration, insurance renewal, mortgage payments, house refinancing, income tax filing, etc.  It was so much easier to let the wife, who was home, handle these things.  By this means, however, the Captain lost almost everything.  In the eyes of the divorce court, his wife owned whatever had her name on it.  On top of that, the court ordered him to pay alimony.  Here at least, he was able to beat the system.

Never in his wildest dreams did the Captain imagine that he would need a lawyer to protect him from a person whom he loved, but he did.  The lawyer advised him that his alimony payments could be reduced substantially if he went back to sea and remained outside of the United States for a minimum of one year.  All the common assets that bore the wife’s name were lost, but the Captain could salvage a significant amount of his future pay by basically running away and staying away.  His travels would be documented, and this would prove his absence from the country in court.  To this end, then, the Captain sailed with the ships that carried military supplies to the Indian Ocean bases during the Iranian hostage crisis.  Subsequently, he went to numerous ports in Asia and stayed far away from the United States for well over a year.  When he did finally return to New York on vacation, his sister and brother-in-law took him in, and he stayed in a spare bedroom on the third floor of their house in Brooklyn.

The Captain made more long voyages to distant places over the next few years.  He always seemed to be very far from home and in no hurry to return.  Eventually, though, he did go home, and he accepted an administrative position in the company offices in Bayonne.  Still boarding at his sister’s and brother-in-law’s house, he drove a badly beaten up old wreck of a van between Brooklyn and Bayonne every day.  On Saturdays during the seasons of good weather, he would drive the van to Bayonne, park it on the pier next to the Hayes, and make repairs to it.  He remarked that while he deeply appreciated his sister’s and brother-in-law’s hospitality, he felt uncomfortable if he spent too much time at their house.  He did not want to intrude upon them any more than necessary.  Repairing the van got him out of the house and kept him busy on his day off.  

Repairing the van also cost him very little money.  His financial circumstances, even with the reduced alimony payments, were far from what they had been in years past.  During this time his colleague Nick the Greek, formerly of the Furman while it had been loading cable in New Hampshire, was hospitalized with cancer in Manhattan.  Wanting to visit Nick but also needing to save money, our Captain drove his van over a toll-free route from Brooklyn to the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in the city.  This saved him what was then a round trip subway fare of two dollars.  Unfortunately, it cost him eight dollars to park the van at the hospital, and those extra six dollars hurt.

Offsetting this loss, however, was a bonanza sitting in the company dumpster.  One of the guys assigned to the Hayes was using the dumpster on the pier to dispose of a large collection of old patio tiles.  The Captain happened upon these tiles one Saturday when he was working on his van and throwing something out.  Since the tiles were still in good condition, he took them out of the dumpster, brought them to his sister’s and brother-in-law’s house, and built a new backyard patio for them.  In this way he was able to return the kindness they had shown him in his time of need.  In fact, the project was so successful that the Captain also built a new backyard patio for their next door neighbors with the tiles that were left over.

This small victory notwithstanding, the Captain had still come a long way down in the world—from Master of any ship of any gross tonnage on oceans to a homeless person living on others’ charity, pinching pennies, and digging bargains out of a dumpster.  He reminded me of Job, “perfect and upright, one that feared God, and eschewed evil” (Job 1:1), but the victim of one who sought “to destroy him without cause” (Job 2:3).   Like the disasters that befell the righteous Job, the betrayal that befell our Captain could not have happened to a more undeserving person.

I knew this man fairly well.  I sailed with him on long voyages, and I had contact with him during the time of his administrative post in Bayonne.  He was a good shipmate and a good boss, consistently friendly, cheerful, easy to work with, well liked, and respected.  He enjoyed having young people aboard ship and was always encouraging them along in their professional advancement.  He was also compassionate.  During the period of my illness he expressed concern for my recovery and return to normal health.  “Tell Dave not to worry,” he shouted at his assistant who was talking to me on the telephone.  “We’ve got him covered.  We’ll have something for him whenever he’s ready.  Tell him to just get better and not worry about money!  We’ll take care of him!”  When a good man like this suffers an unmerited wrong, his associates commiserate with him.

The Captain’s associates also analyzed the situation and wondered why his wife would turn against him in such a terrible way.  Someone eventually remarked, “Hey, look what Judas did in the Bible.  This is the same thing except no one got killed.”  Matthew described it succinctly:

Then one of the twelve, called Judas Iscariot, went unto the chief priests, And said unto them, What will ye give me, and I will deliver him unto you?  And they covenanted with him for thirty pieces of silver.  And from that time he sought opportunity to betray him (Matt. 26:14-16).

With the Captain away from home for several months’ duration, his wife had ample opportunity to betray him.  She also reaped a profit far in excess of a mere thirty pieces of silver.  But was money the sole incentive?  Probably not, for she had already been living quite comfortably.  Speculation held that the long separations while the Captain was at sea figured prominently into her decision.  The husband was gone; the other guy was home.  No other explanation made sense, but even this one did not fully resolve the issue.  Plenty of other seamen had good, loving, and trustworthy wives who stoically endured the separations as a way of life.  What went wrong, then?  No amount of analysis could explain that.  The wife’s motive remained as mysterious as the solution to the problem of undeserved suffering that Job had raised.

That the Captain’s suffering was undeserved went unquestioned.  To his credit, however, he expressed no animosity toward his wife.  He did not say anything bad about her at all.  On the contrary, he asserted that he still loved her and that he could not simply terminate his affection for her after a lifetime together.  Furthermore, he would take her back.  He had no interest in anyone else and no desire to remarry.  That would have violated the beliefs that he held as a Catholic regarding the permanent and sacred nature of marriage.  In this way the Captain lived up to the Shakespearian ideal of love:

Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove.

Oh no! It is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken.¹

He also lived up to the scriptural ideal of “the pure love of Christ” (Moro. 7:47) as Moroni defined charity:

And charity suffereth long, and is kind, and envieth not, and is not puffed up, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, and rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things (Moro. 7:45).

When all was said and done, the Captain remained in his associates’ esteem a good shipmate and a righteous and honorable man, but now there was more.  The respect that he had enjoyed previously increased because of the way he conducted himself in the face of betrayal.  His attitude of kindness and forbearance and his lack of vindictiveness spoke volumes about his character.  His demonstrated Christian values earned him the admiration of even the most cynical men in the fleet.

---

¹ William Shakespeare, Sonnet 116, 2-6.