Vengeance: Hatred and Honor

by Brett Ashton

  Nonetheless he is my boss’s great-grandfather, so I will be certain to do as little as possible to irritate him.

  After carefully following the directions to their end, I found myself driving up a small but paved country lane that led to what could be best described as a medium sized cottage in the woods. Everything was kept neat and trimmed. The grass, trees, and bushes were all cut with care. If it hadn’t been November, it would have looked like the quiet summer retreat you would see on a postcard. There was a small shed on one side in the back and a garage on the other. There was also another small cottage house a short distance off, with a stone sidewalk connecting them, much like the one I was walking on that connected the driveway to the house.

  Still wondering what I was in for, I looked at my watch and found it to be 7:57 A.M. “Perfect; at least the Admiral won’t be angry at me for being late,” I said to myself as I stepped onto the welcome mat and rang the bell.

  After about thirty seconds, I was just about to ring again when I found myself face to face with a woman most likely in her seventies. She was dressed pretty much as a woman her age would be expected to dress, but she was also a little taller and perhaps a little “straighter” than you would expect for someone her age.

  “Yes, can I help you?” she said as she looked straight at me with shockingly bright blue eyes and the warm kind of smile that can only be worn by a person who genuinely cares to help someone.

  “Yes,” I said, “my name is Donald Ritter. I called yesterday from the radio station about an interview with Mr. Williams.”

  “Oh yes, come on in; he’s been expecting you. Would you like some coffee or tea?”

  “No thank you; I wouldn’t want to impose.”

  I was thinking this woman looked strangely familiar. The smile and the eyes reminded me of my boss. And seeing how I had already been bitten by the relationship of the Admiral to him, I wasn’t going to chance it by giving her anymore run around than I had to.

  “It’s no problem,” she said waving her hand with a little laugh and her smile not fading. “I was just going to get some for the Admiral. What’ll ya have, hon?” she said, putting her hand on my shoulder and looking into my eyes in that certain way that made you think she could see right through you and somehow know you really did want something.

  “Coffee, I guess; black will be fine.”

  “Well, alright then. Why don’t you come into the den and have a seat? The Admiral will be here in just moment. He’s getting cleaned up from working out back.”

  She led me through a door off to the side and I followed.

  “Come on in and sit down anywhere except the chair behind the desk or the large one at the window. He likes those for himself. I’ll be back soon with your coffee.”

  As soon as I set foot in the Admiral’s den, I knew any hope for an easy day of work was dead on arrival. It was one of those kinds of rooms that somehow looked larger from the inside than the house could contain from the outside. It had a rather large oak desk off to the right. The desktop was very neat with a laptop computer on it. A large picture window was straight ahead with a reclining chair next to it that I took to be the Admiral’s. Opposite the recliner were several other chairs arranged so that several people could comfortably sit and talk. The room had soft plush carpet on the floors and wood everywhere else. A small fire was warming the room from a fireplace on the left-hand wall, and a table with several chairs were placed in an orderly fashion nearby.

  The thing that grabbed my attention the most was that all available wall space was covered with pictures, awards, and displays of all sorts—more than you could possibly imagine. Instead of finding a seat, like the old woman suggested, I started to look at the items on the walls. There were several keys to cities and awards from dozens of charities. Firearm shooting awards covered a large section of one wall. There were autographed pictures of celebrities like Bob and Dolores Hope, Errol Flynn, and Ronald Reagan as the actor, governor, and president. An autographed record of Glenn Miller’s “In the Mood” along with a photograph of Glenn Miller handing it to a young navy officer whom I took to be the Admiral. Military awards included letters of a commendation from more people than I can name, a Purple Heart, Navy Cross, Bronze Star, and Silver Star among them.

  Behind the desk to the left was a display that looked like a family tree. Curiosity getting the better of me, I took a closer look. At the top was what looked like a recently taken picture of an older man; next to it was a picture of an older woman. Looking closer at the picture of the man, I noticed in the background was the wall with this family tree on it and realized this must be a picture of the Admiral. Under that, with the connecting lines, were pictures of four other people, two men and two women. One of the women I recognized immediately as the woman who welcomed me at the door. Below that, the tree began to branch out rather rapidly into twelve branches, almost fifty branches, and then abruptly narrowed back down to just nine. Two were pictures of younger children under the picture of my boss, Scott Murphy.

  In the center of the wall behind the desk was a glass display case containing a Japanese Samurai sword and facing it a handgun with three silver stars on the handgrip. Relics from the war, I guessed. It was surrounded by pictures of several military ships, including a cruiser, several battleships, destroyers, a submarine, and an aircraft carrier. The aircraft carrier had a name on it which said USS Hornet, and was signed by William F. Halsey and Jimmy Doolittle. Of course, there were pictures of the Admiral with Halsey and Doolittle. There was also a small display case that held rank insignia from the gold bars and silver bars at the bottom, through gold and silver oak leafs, a bird, to one star, two stars, and finally three stars at the top. Now I was certain why they called him the Admiral.

  On the right side of the desk were diplomas. Not your usual collection for literature or basket weaving, or some such thing, but PhDs in history and philosophy. On top of everything else, this man was a college professor! This wasn’t just a den or an office for an old man; it was a collecting place, almost a museum, for a person who was involved with a hundred-year-long aggressive pursuit of life!

  I was suddenly startled out of my amazement by an old man’s voice speaking softly behind me.

  “Been keeping busy, son?”

  Jumping slightly, I turned to see a pair of bright, clear blue eyes looking at me over the top of a pair of half-moon reading glasses. Any trace of hair he once had was just a memory. The face wore the same kind and gentle expression as my boss’s, although it was surrounded by an abundance of wrinkles. There was a clear familial resemblance between the Admiral and the woman who let me into the house. He wasn’t in a wheelchair or using a walker, but a single cane, which he only leaned on slightly. And he came in so quietly, I had not heard him. I would not have guessed he was much more than eighty, and there was a certain youthful air about him that suggested he was only in his mid-thirties.

  “Sir, I-I w-was just was looking…” I stammered, caught off-guard.

  “That’s alright. Perfectly fine,” he said holding his hand up. “You are here to interview me, and you should have some idea who you are talking to,” he continued as he stepped around to the chair behind the desk and sat down. “Besides, the only reason I can think of to put all of this stuff on the walls is for people to look at anyway. For some odd reason, my family thinks my den should be a museum,” he said, waving his free hand around. “You go ahead and look, and when you have questions, well, here I am. Ah, here comes June with the coffee.”

  The old woman came in again and set the tray she was carrying down on the desk. “One coffee, black,” she said handing a large mug to me, “and one with cream and sugar. Is there anything else I can get you boys before I go?”

  “No dear, we’ll be fine. Thank you.”

  “Well alright, you know where to find me if you need anything,” she said as she left the room.

  “My daughter,” the Admiral said, “is a wonderful girl. Both her mother and her husba
nd passed away within several weeks of each other. I had the cottage next door built for her soon afterwards. She manages all of my affairs tirelessly. I can page her from right here if you need anything. It’s no bother.

  “So shall we get started?” the Admiral added after a brief pause.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Please, call me Jake. The sir stuff, for the most part, ended after I retired from the service. Although some people still call me Admiral, it’s not my favorite. I much preferred being called Captain, if anything. But it just goes to show that even admirals don’t always get things their way,” he said with a smile and a wink. “I think other people like the Admiral title better because there are less of them around than regular old captains.”

  “Very well, Jake,” I said awkwardly. “What do you attribute your longevity to?”

  “Now on that, I’m sure you wouldn’t believe, but I get a lot of questions like that at my age,” he replied, smiling. “But most of it, I think, has a lot to do with having a good sound purpose for living to begin with, whatever that purpose may be. A good hard honest day of work to back that purpose helps keep you going more than you would think.”

  “Do you think there are a lot of people in society without a purpose?” I asked.

  “Far be it for me to tell others how to live their lives, but I can tell you that what I did with mine worked for me. It just seems to me a lot of people these days, rather than earning their own way, want to try to force prosperity from somebody else in the name of ‘humanitarianism.’ Living like that doesn’t make sense to me because if you ‘Rob Peter to pay Paul,’ you will end up enslaving them both. And the chances of survival are pretty small for anybody with slaves around.”

  “Your one hundredth birthday is approaching. How do you feel?”

  “Like a man being cut down in the prime of his life by a hundred-year-old body,” the Admiral said with a bit of a chuckle. “Not that this body is in bad shape for its age, but I sometimes wish I could trade it in for another. It just doesn’t seem to keep up with me the way it used to,” he said, still smiling.

  That statement, as if he were something separate from his body, seemed a bit odd to me for a moment until I thought of the PhD in philosophy on the wall.

  The Admiral, looking at me with the bright, piercing blue eyes of a man with a hundred years experience of sizing people up, obviously saw my puzzled expression and added, “Look son, when you have gone as far as I have in life, you have to believe in something more than yourself, or you are more than what you have been led to believe.”

  “Really?” I asked out of genuine interest.

  “I think we are more than what we have been led to believe we are. I tend to lean toward the Eastern way of thinking. That when we die, we drop our bodies, much like a dirty pair of socks, and then get born into this world again as someone else. That’s why I try my hardest to make the world a better place. So when I come back, it will be in better shape for us the next time around.

  “I guess I’m kind of like General George Patton in that respect, except he was the consummate warrior, whereas I seem to have developed a slight aversion to being bombed and shot at. War just never seemed to be that much fun to me, and it tends to make otherwise good people do very bad things.”

  “Speaking of the war,” I asked seizing the opportunity to switch the conversation to Pearl Harbor, “were you involved in World War II much?”

  “From the moment it began for the United States,” he answered.

  “So am I to understand you are a witness to Pearl Harbor?”

  That was the first time I noticed the smile on the old man’s face dim for a moment. Reaching up with his left hand, he took off his glasses, folded them, and laid them on his desk. “Glasses are for old people,” he commented, looking back up at me and staring at me for an awkward amount of time.

  Just as I was thinking I had messed up bad and the old man was going to give me the boot he asked, “Do you really want to learn about Pearl Harbor or just get some sound bites for your program?”

  “Yes,” I replied with some hesitancy given the sudden seriousness of the Admiral’s voice. “I would like to know about it; anything you could tell me would be great. But honestly, at the same time, Jake, I do have to use some of it for the program because it is my job.” I figured I was walking a thin line and had better be straightforward and honest with him because he was obviously the master, and I, the student.

  “Now, let me be very clear about this,” he said, “because there are two things we can talk about here. We could talk about learning about Pearl Harbor or we could talk about learning from Pearl Harbor. Do you understand the difference?”

  “No. What do you mean?” I asked, both trying to regain control of the interview and realizing I was now talking to a history professor.

  “Well, if you want to learn about Pearl Harbor, the History Channel could tell you everything you want to know. You could learn, for example, that Dori Miller was the first African American to win the Navy Cross, or if the hatch would have been closed to the black powder magazine, the Arizona might have survived to the end of the war, or if the radar operator who saw the Japanese planes coming, or his officer in charge, would have sounded the alarm, we could have put up a better fight,” he said with a comical, almost robotic-sounding voice.

  “They will tell you about facts, facts, facts, and more facts until you have them coming out of your ears and don’t know what to do with them. And ultimately, there is nothing you can do with them, except maybe use them to occupy time with your trivial pursuit game.

  “It’s how you apply those facts that really counts. If you want to look closer, behind the cold facts, you will discover there were real people living and dying there. Fighting to stay alive during the most brutal and deliberate acts of violence—and struggling to take or learn something from it. The survivors left looking, sometimes for the rest of their lives, for something that could give any of it any kind of meaning at all, looking for anything to make it so your friends and shipmates did not die needlessly or in vain while you continued to live. My friends and my shipmates,” he added, looking across the desk at me with his blue eyes turning slightly red at the corners.

  “Son, I’m a hundred years old and don’t have a lot of time left to waste, so if you want to just learn something about Pearl, you can watch the History Channel for a week and find out all you want to know.

  “So let me ask you again,” he added after a short pause. “Do you want to know about what happened at Pearl Harbor or learn from what happened at Pearl Harbor?”

  I felt those very sharp blue eyes bearing down on me. I knew from his look that if I just wanted a few cursory memories of what happened on that day, my interview with him would be over. Not that it mattered at all, because I was definitely interested. The old man had sold me. He had a real story to tell, and I was being given a unique chance to hear it. Even as a junior reporter, I knew chances like this were rare. And the respect I gained for him, in the few minutes I had known him, made me want to listen to everything he had to tell me anyway.

  It was an easy thing to think that this man could very well lead other men into combat. I imagined if I had known him very much longer and was in the navy under his command, I would have done anything he ordered, even at the potential expense of my own life.

  It only took a second for me to make up my mind.

  “Yes, Admiral,” I said. “Please tell me about it.”

  After airing the story about the Admiral’s one-hundredth birthday and informing my boss about my plans to get a longer Pearl Harbor exposé from the Admiral, I spent the next two weeks being waited on by the Admiral’s daughter while listening to and recording his story.

  Their hospitality had no end.

  The Admiral mostly talked and I mostly listened. During that time, he conveyed, yet never actually said so, the impression that everything he remembered was as if it happened only yesterday. I couldn’t help but think that s
ome of the things he was saying he had never said to anybody before, yet had wanted to say for a very long time.

  Only on occasion would he read from a log or diary of some sort. Several times, when breaking out one of his journals, he would say, jokingly, “Of course the keeping of personal diaries was strictly forbidden for security purposes on ships during the war.” And he “would just have to trust me to not turn him in to the Department of the Navy for breaking the rules.”

  He never failed to be articulate and never paused for more than a few seconds to remember some specific detail. I could tell he was paying close attention to actually communicating his story, talking mostly in laymen’s terms rather than technical terms. And a lot of times, I could tell he was tempering a lot of “sailor talk.” But other than that, he held nothing back.

  The following is basically a transcript of what the Admiral had to say as he passed it on to me, edited only to remove questions I had asked him, coffee breaks, or other such interruptions.

  I feel compelled to also state it has been an honor to have had the opportunity to spend so much time talking with this man. His story fascinated me, as I hope it will fascinate you.

  The Surrender: Part One

  I didn’t really begin to understand the events of Pearl Harbor until the end of the war when I accepted the surrender of the Japanese submarine I-57. The memory of it stands out vividly in my mind. It was a life-defining moment, even more so than the actual attack or even the entirety of the war itself.

  The fact is, I would have never imagined they would be like they were. Prior to actually seeing them, I pictured them in my mind as being beaten and broken, more like animals than men. Or more accurately, that is what I wanted them to be. I had been shooting at them for the last four years, not out of mere anger or self-defense, but instead, out of sheer hatred.