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They got news of it in different ways;
some heard it from a boy in the street
waving a newspaper and shouting, "Extra!"
others from a breathless voice on radio.
None knew the where or why of it;
where was this obscure naval base,
why had these people seen fit
to wreak such sudden ruin on it?
No matter, that was the concern
of statesmen and politicians;
as for how this could come about
the historians could sort that out.
There was, immediately, the matter
of answering the blow struck that day,
It was a Sunday, and the answer
started forming up early next day.
In towns and cities coast to coast
they lined up at recruiting posts,
young men with a single thought:
hit back! in any way you can.
Some had just set out on what
they thought would be careers;
others were students still unsure
of what they hoped to get from life.
Although some would leave behind
a wife, and children too, there were
others, hardly more than boys,
who hadn't yet begun to shave
Man and boy, they raised a hand
and took an oath to support and defend
the consitution of their country
against enemies foreign or domestic.
Some became soldiers, some marines,
still others became sailors and of them,
a few found their way to a barely known
branch of the Navy: the Armed Guard.
They were sent, not to cruisers
and carriers and sleek destroyers,
but to freighters and tankers,
merchant ships of every sort.
Unhonored and all but unknown,
the sailors of the Armed Guard
manned and maintained the guns
on these ungainly, unlovely ships.
Not all were gunners, though;
among them were signalmen,
who stood watch on the bridge
alert for flag hoist or flashing light.
Another few were radiomen,
who spent hour after hour
listening for coded warnings
of U-boats lurking somewhere ahead.
Whatever the rating, whatever
the coarse, not many could count
on a voyage he would be able
to describe later as uneventful.
At the outset, there was always
an ocean to cross, an ocean made
hazardous if not by the enemy
then by the foulest of weather
Once past the wolfpacks,
and fighters and dive bombers,
they could too often count
on a hostile reception on shore.
Ask the man who stood
at the three-inch gun on the bow
or at its five-inch mate on the stern,
or one of the twenty-milimeters in between.
What was it like to see a Zero
roaring in with its machine guns
spitting fire and lead, its pilot
grinning crazily over his sights?
What was it like to sight a U-boat
rising to the sea's surface
in the midst of your convoy
launching iron fish left and right?
What was it like to survive a week
of frigid watches in the North Atlantic
and then learn that you weren't
to head south but north, to Murmansk?
What was it like to put cargo ashore
in the United Kingdom and then
not take on ballast for a return
voyage, but troops bound for Normandy?
Then, what was it like to lie at anchor
off that bloody beach for a week
at the mercy not only of Luftwaffe pilots
but big guns zeroed in and roaring?
It's no longer as easy as it used to be
to find a man who can tell you how it was;
we're told that barely one in ten
is still counted among the living.
But those who are still alive,
whose memories haven't been clouded
by age, will be glad to tell you;
so ask them, before time says you can't.
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