Pearl Harbor: A Day of Terror and Bravery

"The first thing I saw was a plane so low I could see the pilot's face. He had this huge,

toothy grin. Then... the world exploded." December 7th, 1941.

It was my first deployment, ever. Just 18 years old, and I’d been assigned

to the battleship USS Nevada. For a kid from the landlocked Midwest, Hawaii was pure

paradise. The air was warm, the sky was a perfect, cloudless blue, and the harbor water

was as calm as glass. It was a typical Sunday morning. Sailors in their crisp white uniforms

were getting ready for shore leave, writing letters home, or just killing

time before chow. On Battleship Row, we were moored alone at the end of a line of giants.