The Prodigal

That’s my father on the right with a string on his finger taking a selfie. On the left his younger brother David on leave from the Navy. Together again with their sister on that all so familiar farm in Missouri late in November. The “Dust Bowl Days” were past and “Great Depression” over. It had been a wonderful time, that Thanksgiving of 1941. And it was after 2 AM as my father gently triggered the camera shutter. A few hours later, the “prodigal” was once again on his way.

The U.S.S. Oglala, bucking waves under full power, was urgently propelling toward its Pacific destination. It "had" to arrive before the 7th. However, fatigue eventually took its toll on the minelayer, a WW1 converted passenger steamer. Silently adrift, it summoned assistance. After a tow cable was attached and the feverish pace resumed, David commented to his superior: “If we go any faster that cable is ‘gona’ snap.” And “snap” it did!

The U.S.S. Oglala entered Pearl Harbor during the early morning hours of December 7, the last to arrive. It moored “side by side” with the U.S.S. Helena, completing the formation of "Battleship Row."

And as the sun rose on “December 7, 1941,” most of the Oglala crew, including her commanding officer, were still “out on the town.” However, the men in the boiler room, the cook, the second in command, and a few others including David were at their stations. When the sound of revving planes and whistling bombs punctuated the morning tranquility, General Quarters was sounded. The second in command screamed, “Man the Guns”! David screamed back: “What guns”! Someone found the keys, unlocked the magazine, and after some fumbling a 3"/50 cal. A.A. gun and three .30 cal. machine guns were manned and returning fire.

Then as several enemy planes strafed the deck, a buddy standing immediately behind David was struck in the face, then a Zero flying low and amidships, then a torpedo and its contrail as it converged on the Oglala. It would soon be over! The Oglala lifted out of the water, but he was still alive! The submerged munition had gone under the Oglala and struck the Helena on the other side.

They continued firing, reporting some “definite hits.” However, the Oglala’s hull had ruptured and was flooding rapidly. For an hour and a half the meager crew was uninterrupted in returning fire as the Oglala continued to list to her port side. 5°, 10°, 15°, 20°. Then as the commanding officer finally returned, the Oglala listed to its side, and those who could swam away.

Back on a farm in Missouri, a family had but one thought. “Is he alive.” The phone was never unattended. A speaker in the kitchen was connected remotely to the wireless in the library. And as hours turned to days, a mother listened and waited. And during the days before Christmas, sleep was haunted by the sound of “tapping” sailors trapped in the impenetrable hulls of sinking ships….

David remained afloat for the remainder of the war, but in the years that followed, David never forgot that day or his buddy, and the question, "Why him, not me?"

The “prodigal” returned to the soil, married, had children, and as aimless years went by, he was haunted by the question, "Why not me?" Then one night in a small church, down on his 70 year old knees, he found the answer:

“I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, And am no more worthy to be called thy son.... And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him…. For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found….” (Luke 15:18-24).

Not long ago, his pastor was at the hospital with his wife and son. "Dad, you are the best father a son could ever have." David, gasping for breath from the decadence of earlier years, with effort and in kind responded "you are the best son a father could ever have." And as final exchanges waned, his pastor ask: "David, do you want the service at the church or the funeral home?" Then David with joy and peace and a smile consistent with his latter years shot back: "SURPRISE ME"!

"Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us" (Hebrews 12:1).

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