The Lady Commodore

In between voyages, the Bartlett usually moored in the basin of Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.  During these layovers, oceanographic survey equipment was  installed and changed out, technicians reported aboard and were discharged, fuel and provisions were loaded, and repairs to machinery were made.  All routine operations.  Occasionally visitors came aboard, mostly in connection with the survey equipment and mechanical repairs.  On Thursday, October 18, 1984, however, the Commodore of the Fleet came to visit the ship.

Nowadays a Commodore is an unusual personage.  In the Navy, there were Commodores ranking above Captains and below Rear Admirals until the late 1890s, when the position was abolished.  In the Merchant Marine, a Commodore was the senior Captain in the company.  Mostly an honorific, the rank and title of Commodore recognized the long years of experience and extensive knowledge of ships and the sea held by the line’s longest-serving Master.  In some cases, merchant Commodores had some administrative duties ashore; more typically, however, this administrative work came under the jurisdiction of the Port Captain.  Most Commodores continued to go to sea.  When they retired and came ashore, they often wrote their memoirs.

The Commodores who reigned over our line in the 1980s were different.  They were commissioned naval officers holding the rank of Captain, not Commodore.  Also, they were not the senior shipmasters in the fleet; in fact, none of them even held Merchant Marine licenses of any level, let alone as Masters.  Simply put, they were administrators.  They were not real seamen but office personnel who sailed desks in the company offices in Bayonne, New Jersey.  And these offices, contained in a windowless building situated on the waterfront of New York Harbor, did not permit the Commodores to even peek outside and see the shipping.

In my eight years with the company, I think we had four or five Commodores in succession.  They never stayed long, but arrived and departed with express train regularity.  Until this one day aboard the Bartlett in Port Everglades, I never saw any of these Commodores, although aboard all the ships we routinely received communications from them.  They remained distant and ethereal figures who sent commendatory memos for work well done and felicitous greetings at Christmastime.

Most of the seamen preferred it this way, and for good reason.  The Commodores and many other high-ranking personnel were regarded not with reverence and respect but with suspicion and disdain.  Too many times aboard too many ships big shots of various descriptions  came on board in various ports for very dubious purposes.  They demanded lavish attention from busy crews, and their presence on board interfered with the ships’ routines and wasted much of the company’s time and money.  In short, they got in everyone’s way.  They had no useful work to do and they made nuisances of themselves.  Consequently, the seamen came to regard visiting big shots as nothing but trouble.  The more inquisitive-minded of the seamen wondered about the psychology that drove these big shots to behave the way they did.

Impromptu discussions in the chow hall or at the gangway sometimes focused on the abnormal psychosis of the big shot.  There were many questions but few answers.  Why does this guy act like this?  What’s he trying to prove?  Is he compensating for an overwhelming inferiority complex?  Is he an unwanted second son trying to outshine his older brother?  Is he an  ignorant person trying to sound more sophisticated than he really is?  Is his demonstrated contempt for the crew an act to conceal his own lack of self-esteem?  Whatever his problem is, we don’t need it here.  He should go home and get counseling!

One big shot and retiring Commodore especially rankled the crews of every ship in the fleet with a farewell message which he sent on his departure.  In this missive he discussed his upcoming retirement, and went so far as to brag that he had taken the exams for and had been given an original Master’s license by the Coast Guard!!  This meant that on the basis of going to sea in the Navy, the Coast Guard had permitted him to take the exams not for third mate or second mate or even chief mate, but to jump right to the top.  Whatever his military credentials may or may not have been, he had not built a career of sailing aboard civilian cargo ships.  This lack of experience in seaborne commerce, of which the Master’s license stood as the crowning achievement, struck the Masters and mates in the fleet as outrageous beyond belief, a slap in the face to all merchant seamen everywhere!  If this fellow could get a Master’s license without ever having been a merchant seaman, let alone working his way up through the licensing levels, then the Master’s license itself would become nothing but a meaningless piece of paper, a mere decoration.  But then, big shots always seemed to somehow get everything they wanted.

It was with the cynicism generated by negative experiences involving big shots that the crew of the Bartlett anticipated the arrival of the company’s first lady Commodore one bright and sunny October morning.

About 9:00am Commodore Elizabeth Wylie drove onto the pier in a nondescript rental car.  She parked the vehicle in a legal parking space, got out, and walked over to the ship and up the gangway.  She arrived alone, without an entourage.  She wore plain Navy khakis with only her rank insignia on the collar.  She did not wear battle stars, campaign ribbons, or gold braid.  The gangway watchman and I met her when she stepped aboard.  She greeted both of us cordially and introduced herself simply as Elizabeth Wylie without adding any titles.  She cheerfully showed me her company identification when I asked for it.  In fact, she remarked that of the five ships that she had visited thus far, the Bartlett was the only one to require identification, and she was happy to see this done.  I next notified Captain Giaccardo that the Commodore had arrived,   He came along a minute or so later, and the introductions continued.  The discussion that followed took place in normal conversational tones.  There was no shouting nor barking of orders nor unreasonable demands for lavish hospitality.  Neither were there any displays of self-importance, military pomposity, or personal aggrandizement.  On the contrary, the occasion was noteworthy for its simple civility.  After previous experiences aboard other ships, it seemed astonishingly benign.

After a few minutes of light conversation at the head of the gangway,  Captain Giaccardo  and Commodore Wylie set out on a tour of the Bartlett.  I returned to my own duties thinking that the day would not be so bad after all.

And it wasn’t.  The Commodore spent the next few hours touring the ship, meeting and talking with the crew, having lunch, and discussing business with the Captain and Chief Engineer.  I saw her again a few times, too.  She impressed me as being very interested in the ship and the oceanographic survey work that it did, and also as an exceptionally pleasant person.  After spending most of the day on board, she wished us all well and returned ashore as quietly as she had come aboard.  After her departure, a broadly smiling and very happy Captain Giaccardo told me more about her visit.

He, too, had not been looking forward to this state occasion.  A young man in his early thirties, Captain Giaccardo was serving his first stint as Master on the Bartlett, and quite naturally he did not want any trouble with big shots visiting from the Bayonne headquarters.  Well, he didn’t get any.  Captain Giaccardo described Commodore Wylie in glowing terms.  She was friendly and courteous and very gracious.  Obviously intelligent and well educated, she asked many good questions about the ship and its survey voyages, and then she listened attentively to the answers without interrupting or otherwise demonstrating impatience.  Somewhat surprisingly, she admitted to never having gone to sea—this was before the Navy became fully co-ed—and also to being new on the job as Commodore, having started only two and a half weeks ago, at the beginning of the month.  For these reasons, she stated her intention of visiting as much of the fleet as she could and learning as much as possible about all the ships and their operations.  She expressed a sincere admiration for the crews she had met thus far and for the work they did.  In this way, she made an outstanding first impression as a gracious guest and industrious administrator. 

Everyone on the ship who had met Commodore Wylie liked her and appreciated her polite and professional demeanor, her interest in the ship and its crew, and her demonstrated willingness to listen and learn.  While this behavior sounds like simple common courtesy, previous experiences had unfortunately shown it to be more the exception than the rule with visiting big shots.  But this one was different.  In Shakespearean terms, Commodore Wylie displayed neither “the insolence of office”[1] nor “the proud man’s contumely.”[2]  In shipboard terms, she did not act at all like a big shot!

The Bartlett remained in Port Everglades for another week and then sailed on Thursday, October 25.  She went on a three-weeks-long survey voyage in the southwest Atlantic, just outside the Caribbean basin.  I never saw Commodore Wylie again, but I did hope that she would do well in her new position as Commodore of the Fleet.  In retrospect, I see Commodore Wylie as following the scriptural admonition, “Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he will lift you up” (James 4:10).  She boarded the Bartlett humbly and without fanfare as a new employee striving to learn the ropes, and she returned ashore commanding the respect and admiration of the entire crew.

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[1] Hamlet, III:i:73.

[2] Op. Cit., III:i:71.

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.

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¹ William Shakespeare, Sonnet 116, 2-6.

The Scofflaw

Captain Ray Iacabacci appeared on the bridge of the Comet with an armful of bottles.  An unlicensed seaman nicknamed Wash followed him, talking constantly and apologizing repeatedly.  As Captain Icky and Wash turned to go out on the port bridge wing, I followed them to see what was going on.  As they reached the side of the ship, Captain Icky relaxed his arm-hold on all the bottles and started pitching them into the sea far below.  One by one they dropped into the water with a splash and were left behind to sink in the Comet’s wake.  Wash became silent and appeared grief-stricken as he watched his treasures leave his possession forever.  Whiskey, gin, rum, cognac, vodka, wine, and a few beer chasers all went to their final resting place at the bottom of the Atlantic.

When the deed was done, Captain Icky stood up straight and spoke sternly to his subordinate:  “That takes care of that.  I won’t do anything else about it this time.  Just don’t ever bring any more of that stuff on board again!”

Wash replied, “Yes suh, Cap’n.  Ah mean, no suh, Cap’n.  Ah won’t do that no more, Cap’n.  Ah’ve learned mah lesson, Cap’n.  Ah promise Ah’ll be good, Cap’n.  Thank yah, Cap’n.”  He bowed and backed away submissively as he spoke.  Captain Icky grunted a dismissal at him and then both men left the bridge.  No official record of this disciplinary action was made; the offender received only a verbal reprimand and suffered the loss of his liquor.  Captain Icky had administered justice with mercy.

Such was Captain Icky’s way.  A gruff but good-natured man, he was always willing to give an offender a second chance, but he wanted the culprit to learn a lesson in the process.  In this case, it worked very well.  Demonstrating that “he that hearkeneth unto counsel is wise” (Prov. 12:15), Wash never caused any trouble again.  In a subsequent case with a different and less contrite personality, however, Captain Icky’s good nature was put to the test.

The Comet loaded military vehicles in New Orleans and then sailed for San Lorenzo, Honduras, via the Panama Canal.  Moored to a concrete pier that extended into the water from an immense jungle, the ship was unloaded by her own deck crewmen assisted by American Army personnel stationed in the area.  Because it was a high-priority cargo, the unloading continued without respite long into the night.  Most of the crew worked overtime to get everything ashore so the Comet could sail again in the morning.  A few of the fellows were able to take a couple of hours off and go into town, but most of them returned promptly and reported that there was nothing in the town that was worth seeing, let alone spending money on.  One of them lingered in the town bar, however.  His shipmates tried to convince him to return to the Comet with them, for they sensed that trouble was brewing.  But demonstrating that “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes,” (Prov. 12:15), he did not heed their counsel.

This fellow was an able seaman.  His name was difficult to pronounce, so it was often just slurred into Go Bell.  He was not a bad person, but he had a few bad habits which did not endear him to his colleagues.  Many of them found one habit in particular extremely irritating.  Quite simply, Go Bell talked too much.  He talked at people instead of to them, and he talked with affected authority and knowledge on all subjects, including the operation of the ship.  Whatever anyone else said, including his boss, Go Bell would top it.  He always knew more and knew better than everyone else.  Cynics would wonder aloud, “If he’s so smart, why doesn’t he have a Master’s license?”  He never took anyone’s advice, and he certainly never heeded the oft-repeated advice to just shut up and stop irritating others.  It was predicted that sooner or later his big mouth would get him into trouble, and in San Lorenzo, it did.

Around midnight aboard the Comet, the bosun asked Captain Icky if he could have a few of the men help him rig the heavy lift gear.  There were several oversize and overweight items stowed forward on the main deck, and they needed to go ashore.  Captain Icky was conferring with the bosun about this operation when Go Bell returned to the ship and interrupted them.

A kind stranger had rescued Go Bell and brought him back to the Comet in a taxi.  He explained what had happened.  After his shipmates had left the bar, Go Bell became the lone merchant seaman among a large group of Army men.  The only other people there were the bartenders and some young ladies who were soliciting the servicemen’s interest in additional recreational activities.  The prettiest of these girls became the center of several men’s attention, including Go Bell’s, and a dispute arose.  Go Bell made the mistake of claiming the young lady for himself while remarking to the Army men who outnumbered him on their comparative lack of intelligence and virility.  These comments were not well received, and the dispute escalated into a brawl.  Enraged by the invectives that Go Bell had directed at them, the Army men attacked him savagely.  This sober Good Samaritan intervened and dragged Go Bell out of the place after he had been knocked unconscious and likely prevented him from being beaten to death.

By the time Go Bell arrived back aboard the Comet, he had regained consciousness and was able to walk with difficulty.  All of us who saw him were horrified by his appearance.  His face, neck, and arms were covered with bruises and dried blood.  Over his left eye was a mass of black and blue the size and shape of a baseball.  This growth oozed blood and pus and enlarged to the point of forcing the eye shut and blocking his vision.  This was the spot where he had been hit by the swinging barstool which had knocked him unconscious.  Captain Icky took one look at him and ordered him to go back ashore to the local hospital.  Insulted by this unsympathetic no-nonsense greeting, Go Bell refused.  Instead, he went to his quarters and got in bed.

Captain Icky, the chief mate, the bosun, and three or four other seamen were having some difficulty with the heavy lift gear.  This was delaying the discharge of the main deck cargo, annoying some high-ranking Army officers who were waiting impatiently on the pier, and threatening the ship’s scheduled sailing time.  Into the middle of this problem had stumbled the badly beaten up Go Bell.  Captain Icky, already anxious and now angered by this new development, dispatched the chief mate to Go Bell’s bedside to clean up his wounds while the rest of them got the heavy lift gear working.  The mate returned after only a few minutes.  Go Bell had refused his treatment as well.

When the heavy lift gear finally became operational, Captain Icky left the bosun in charge of using it to unload the cargo.  Next, concerned with the possible repercussions of Go Bell’s adventures ashore, an uncharacteristically infuriated Captain Icky went to the gangway watchman and instructed him to make an entry in the logbook describing Go Bell’s condition when he arrived back at the ship and recording his refusal to accept medical attention.  In the event that Go Bell decided to file a grievance or initiate litigation after he had sobered up, Captain Icky wanted the proper documentation to hold the Comet, her officers, and her owner immune from liability.

The Comet sailed from San Lorenzo the next day.  She proceeded up the West Coast of North America, stopped at two American ports, and then went transpacific and stopped at several ports in the Far East.  Along the way Go Bell’s injuries gradually healed.  The large souvenir over his eye took the longest time to clear up; vestiges of it remained well over a month later.  The most remarkable difference, however, was the silence.  Go Bell acquired the new habit of simply doing his work without the constant talk and pretense of superiority that had long irritated his colleagues.  He seemed to have learned his lesson.  Then the Comet arrived in Pusan, South Korea.     

Once again, the Comet was delivering an Army cargo, and numerous Army personnel came aboard the ship after she arrived in Pusan.  Among these were two young men with a dog.  They came along with a special request after the ship had been docked for a few days.  They explained that their dog had recently completed training in contraband detection and that she needed some real-life experience in sniffing out such things as illegal drugs.  They asked if Captain Icky would mind if they took the dog on an inspection of the Comet for this purpose.  Captain Icky had no objections.  He welcomed them aboard but advised them, “You fellows are wasting your time here.  No one in this crew is involved with illegal drugs.  You won’t find anything on this ship.”

One of the third mates led the way as the two Army men and the dog toured the Comet’s public rooms, work spaces, and crew accommodations.  Just when it seemed that Captain Icky’s prediction would come true, the dog latched onto something in one of the crew accommodation areas.  The third mate called for the chief mate, and the chief mate called for Captain Icky.  They investigated the location of the dog’s discovery and found a package of marijuana in Go Bell’s belongings.

Captain Icky was not pleased by this turn of events.  Not only did he sternly disapprove of the use of illegal drugs, but he had been made to look foolish in front of the two Army men and their dog.  He was not the vindictive type, but if he were inclined to let the incident blow over, he could not.  The Army knew about this now.  There were procedures to be followed.  Questions would be asked and reports would be filed.  As he told Go Bell, “There’s nothing I can do for you now.  You have to go back to the office, and somebody there will decide.”  The next day, then, Go Bell was paid off the Comet and sent to Seoul by rail and then to New York by air.  Simply stated, he was fired from his job aboard ship, and it remained to be determined if he would be fired from the company altogether.  And we all thought that he had learned his lesson half the world away in Honduras.

In many General Conferences of the Church the counsel has been given that while people are free to choose their actions, they often are not free to choose the consequences of these actions.  In other words, the results often lie beyond people’s control.  Go Bell is a good case in point.  He chose to be antagonistic toward his shipmates, but they chose to be patient and not react to his provocation.  In the bar in San Lorenzo, Go Bell chose to drink too much, to participate in the dispute over the girl, and to hurl invectives at the Army men.  The resulting brawl in which the Army men beat him up so badly was a consequence not of Go Bell’s choosing but one that he nonetheless brought on himself by his actions.  Similarly, the dog’s discovery of his marijuana in Pusan was a consequence that Go Bell did not choose, but a result that arose from his choosing to do drugs.  In every case Go Bell chose his actions, but someone else chose the consequences, and whether favorable or unfavorable to him, they remained largely beyond his control.

In a world full of beauty and opportunity and interesting things to see and do and experience, I’ve long wondered why someone would want to repeatedly impair his intelligence and pollute his health by overdosing on mind-clouding chemicals such as alcohol and marijuana, among others.  As with so many of the popular vices, the desired pleasant effects wear off after a short while, but the undesired unpleasant consequences last much longer.  Furthermore, there are so many better things that people can do with their minds and bodies and so much greater good that people can accomplish when they remain unimpaired by these demonic concoctions.  As Shakespeare so artfully expressed it,

What a piece of work is a man!  How noble in reason!  How infinite in faculty!  In form and moving how express and admirable!  In action how like an angel!  In apprehension how like a god!  The beauty of the world!  The paragon of animals!¹    

President Gordon B. Hinckley made this same point more directly at a youth meeting:

I hope nobody here is on drugs.  How foolish can you be to take illegal drugs, really?  They do not help you in any way.  They hurt you.  They make you poor and weak.  They shorten your life.  They take away your control of yourself.  What a crazy thing to do, really, when all is said and done.         

The Lord has blessed us with these wonderful bodies, these wonderful minds, these things with which we think.  What a marvelous thing is a human mind.  How wonderful it is.  I put a record on my phonograph the other evening—one of Beethoven’s concertos.  I do not know anything about Beethoven. But I know that out of the genius of that mind came something really tremendous and wonderful.  The human mind—what it can do!  Your minds—don’t cloud them with drugs.²

President Hinckley hastened to add, however, that for those who have stumbled there is a second chance, that one can make a fresh start and do better:  “Get hold of yourself, get control of yourself.  Stop it, and seek help.”³  In the same way that Captain Icky had given Wash a second chance after throwing his cache of hard liquor overboard, the Lord gives all of us many second chances to not only “stop it, and seek help” but also to live up to our potential as his “piece of work” which he has made the “beauty of the world.”  He wants us to live like angels and not demons.

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¹ William Shakespeare, Hamlet, II:ii:310-313.

² Gordon B. Hinckley, “Denver, Colorado, Stake Youth Meeting,” April 14, 1996, in Discourses of President Gordon B. Hinckley, Volume I, Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2004.

³ Ibid.