Buyer2021
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- First Name
- Alan
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- Feb 9, 2021
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- central TX
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Being stationed on Ford Island from August 1972 to August 1974 certainly brought me, as a young Army draftee, a greater awareness of the history of that day. As 'guests' of the Navy the Army COE 652nd Engineering BN occupied a pair of WWII-vintage airplane hangars on the NW side of the island near the site of the USS Utah. A topographic mapping unit of cartographers and printers, we created and printed color 'quad sheet' maps of Cambodia from those hangars while I was there.
Our unit had no barracks, all personnel lived off-post, most of us in Honolulu as I did for my first year. There was no bridge to the island at that time, we rode one of the two Ford Island ferries to and from work each weekday, motoring past the USS Arizona Memorial. I later moved to Ewa Beach, commuting to the island via a Navy launch from Pearl City to a landing near the Utah.
When stationed there one could not help but occasionally try vainly to imagine the horrors of that day of infamy. And since, feel a particular closeness to that event, never to forget those who gave their last full measure of devotion there.
Our unit had no barracks, all personnel lived off-post, most of us in Honolulu as I did for my first year. There was no bridge to the island at that time, we rode one of the two Ford Island ferries to and from work each weekday, motoring past the USS Arizona Memorial. I later moved to Ewa Beach, commuting to the island via a Navy launch from Pearl City to a landing near the Utah.
When stationed there one could not help but occasionally try vainly to imagine the horrors of that day of infamy. And since, feel a particular closeness to that event, never to forget those who gave their last full measure of devotion there.
The Young Dead Soldiers Do Not Speak
The young dead soldiers do not speak.
Nevertheless, they are heard in the still houses:
who has not heard them?
They have a silence that speaks for them at night
and when the clock counts.
They say: We were young. We have died.
Remember us.
They say: We have done what we could
but until it is finished it is not done.
They say: We have given our lives but until it is finished
no one can know what our lives gave.
They say: Our deaths are not ours: they are yours,
they will mean what you make them.
They say: Whether our lives and our deaths were for
peace and a new hope or for nothing we cannot say,
it is you who must say this.
We leave you our deaths. Give them their meaning.
We were young, they say. We have died; remember us.
Nevertheless, they are heard in the still houses:
who has not heard them?
They have a silence that speaks for them at night
and when the clock counts.
They say: We were young. We have died.
Remember us.
They say: We have done what we could
but until it is finished it is not done.
They say: We have given our lives but until it is finished
no one can know what our lives gave.
They say: Our deaths are not ours: they are yours,
they will mean what you make them.
They say: Whether our lives and our deaths were for
peace and a new hope or for nothing we cannot say,
it is you who must say this.
We leave you our deaths. Give them their meaning.
We were young, they say. We have died; remember us.
Archibald MacLeish
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