‘Carry on, stay alert’

“Carry on,” it’s a simple phrase, yet large in emphasis. It is a commonly used in military environs, especially Navy environs, in which a higher ranked individual will often direct a subordinate to continue to performing their present duty, carry on.

Late one dark night in the Pacific, on lookout duty on a destroyer’s “fantail,” I was struggling to stay awake. I had taken a position out of the wind. The nearly pitch-black conditions and the roll of the ship, were taking a toll. Out of my peripheral vision I caught the dim movement of an orange colored baseball cap. There was only one such hat on the ship and that hat sat on the head of the ship’s Executive Officer, the second in command! How long he had been standing there, I had no idea.

I immediately spoke up, “Good evening, sir. Quiet night, out here tonight.”

“Yes it is,” he responded. “Carry on sailor. Stay alert.”

To which I responded “Aye, aye, sir.”

He then retired for the night, while I, stayed “alert.”

Years later, I would find myself standing in the middle of Hawaii’s USS Arizona memorial site gazing down at the Arizona’s still seeping oil that creates an ever present sheen on the water. There is a sacred hush there, like so many of the places set aside for honoring the lives sacrificed for freedom.

I had recently sailed to Hawaii aboard the USS Willamette, a Navy oil supply ship, as the guest of our youngest daughter Taryn and the U.S. Navy. In those days the Navy would allow certain civilians to “cruise” with relatives on specially designated trips. We got under way in Portland, Ore. and sailed to Pearl Harbor, the ship’s homeport.

While onboard, the ship’s captain made me the honorary ship’s Chaplin, asking me to conduct onboard church services and asked me to make myself available to the officers and crew for spiritual counseling if so needed. I gladly accepted.

Now I was standing above the Arizona deep in thought, reviewing in my mind, all that this hallowed place was dedicated to, and the tragic loss of lives with the horrors of war this infamous incident had brought about for both sides. Our family had suffered loss in the same attack but on another ship, the USS Utah.

I lifted my eyes to a spot a few yards up the Ford Island beach where preparations for the permanent home of the USS Missouri, were in the last stages of completion. The deck of the Missouri was the site of Japan’s signing the surrender papers, bringing that part of World War II to a close. I had a great-uncle onboard for that.

My father had served in the Navy during those years as well, on one of the many Liberty ships. So, there before me I had the beginning and the ending of the war in the Pacific. But I didn’t stop there. I sent my gaze across the harbor’s water to a pier where, when I was only 18, I “manned the rail” every morning, for muster aboard the USS Observation Island, a missile testing ship for the development of the Polaris and Poseidon missiles.

As I stood there remembering those times, shipmates, and adventures, something cut across my vision as it cut across the waters of Pearl Harbor. It was the Willamette, my daughter’s ship, returning from a run. Tender sentiments turned to monumental visual reality in a core shaking instant, played out on a living stage right in front of me, the Arizona, the Missouri, the Observation Island, the Willamette.

It wasn’t the ships that shook me, but the crews, the generations, each in turn, handing off to the next the sacred trust of guarding our liberty and freedoms. It was one of those profound moments I will not forget.

Sometimes it is easy to get caught up in the demands and activities of our lives and world events. The stark reality that our liberty and our freedoms truly are, a sacred trust that have been placed in our hands for maintenance and safekeeping, somehow becomes obscure and turns into a possession/entitlement view.

The motto of the United States of America is: “In God we trust.” We trust God to sustain us and direct us as he has entrusted us with the rights, privileges, and freedoms to stand against tyranny, oppression, and injustice.

When at the age of 17 I raised my hand, swore an oath of allegiance to protect against all enemies foreign and domestic, I accepted that sacred trust from preceding generations. Now I am passing it on to the next generations while still “on duty” as an every day citizen. From past generations to ours, to the next, the command is still: “Carry on. Stay alert.”

S. Duane Guisinger is the pastor at Sunny Knik Chapel, Mile 14, Knik-Goose Bay Road.