Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, November 28, 1993 TAG: 9311300362
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
She said it once before, I do not now recall exactly when. It may have been when he left us three years ago to enter training at Pensacola as an aviation cadet, or it may have been last spring after we bade him farewell at Woodrum Field and saw him go winging his way up into the skies and swiftly vanish in the distance, on his way to keep a rendezvous with death, albeit, thanks be to a merciful God, we knew it not.
At any rate, this is what his mother said to me (and I am very sure she never said it to anyone else): ``Somehow in my heart I have always thought of Powell Junior as a Knight in Shining Armor.'' She said it again (and this time, too, she said it to me alone) the other night after the news came.
I knew just what she meant. I had never expressed it in just that way, but I have had the same thought always about my boy. To us he was a Knight in Shining Armor indeed - a Shining Armor of innate gentleness, love for others, charitable in his way of thinking, kind in deed, generous to a fault, utterly unselfish, sweet in his disposition, finding happiness in doing countless acts of kindness as he went his way through life, brave, honorable, manly; literally living the Christian faith that he professed and to the tenets of which he held fast, we are firmly persuaded, right up to the very moment in which he drew his last breath of life.
In that moment something inexpressibly fine and beautiful went out of the world. It is truly sad to realize that there have been many such moments, and that there must yet be so very many such moments, when brave young souls take flight to their Maker, having offered their all on the altar of duty.
He was not a Paragon of Human Perfection, nor am I trying to paint him as such. The fact that he has died has not caused him to take on imaginary virtues in the tear-dimmed eyes of those who loved him. What I have set down is not the product of a bereaved father's fanciful imagination or a mistaken illusion bearing but a poor and imperfect resemblance to the truth. He was truly just such a boy - as all who knew him will, I think, gladly testify. He had that priceless asset which means so much to those who possess it: the ability to win and hold friends. This was demonstrated over and over again - in his boyhood days as a student at Jefferson High, afterward at Roanoke College and at V.P.I., at Pensacola, where he spent what were probably the happiest days of his whole life, first as a cadet and afterward as an aviation instructor, and in his all too brief tour of duty with the Fleet.
He was happy and interested in his work as an instructor at Pensacola but he fretted and longed for active duty. He requested it several times and when his orders finally came to report to the West Coast for assignment to sea duty, he was just about the happiest young man in the Navy, I imagine.
He wrote to us, expressing his pride that Uncle Sam felt he was ready to go to a position of greater responsibility - he did not mention that it was likewise a position of greater danger - where he might have a personal part in the winning of the war. He did not feel that it was in the nature of a sacrifice, but only that it was a great privilege to be permitted to go to the front and risk his young life in his country's defense.
After Pearl Harbor (he was then an instructor at Pensacola) he wrote us a beautiful letter, which was but one of many beautiful letters that we have kept and which we shall always prize among our dearest and most sacred possessions, in which he spoke of his realization of the solemn and awful meaning of what had occurred. He wrote that he knew it meant that ``many of us'' would be called on to fight the Nation's battles and that ``some will not return,'' and he assured us very simply but very earnestly, too, that if he should be one of those who did not come back, he wanted us to know that he considered it such a very little gift to be able to make in return for all that had been done for him, for the privileges that had been his all through life.
He spoke of his love for his home and family and for his native State and of his pride in being an officer in the United States Navy. He wrote of his gratitude for the rich blessings that had been his all through life and of the deep thankfulness he felt for the training he had received which made him ready and fit to fight for his country, now that war had come.
``If I should not come back, my darlings, do not grieve for me,'' he wrote. ``I have had a rich, full life and I feel that life owes me nothing more. Whatever may lie ahead, and no matter what price I may be called on to pay, it will be a small return indeed to make for the privilege of being your son, the blessing of being an American.'' That was the way he expressed himself when he realized that America was at war, when he may perchance have realized (who knows?) that before it was over he would be called on to give his life for his country.
He expressed the same thought many times, though in different ways, in the letters that came back to us after he went out into the Pacific, the letters for which we always waited so eagerly, the letters that will come no more. He wrote us once (probably that was when he was up in the Aleutians during the past summer) of having attended church service on his ship and of the ``inner peace'' that was his, the readiness for whatever might be in store for him.
It is profoundly comforting to know that, now that he is no more. We are fully conscious of the fact that he was ready to meet his God and that he had no regrets, nothing for which to atone, nothing of which he need be in the least ashamed. The knowledge is a source of great comfort. He did not fear death, nor did he have cause to fear the hereafter. Yes, we were very proud of our boy. There is in our hearts an unspeakable grief, but there is also in our hearts an unspeakable pride, which we will carry with us for the rest of our days. In all humility we thank God for having given us such a son; we thank Him that we have these precious pearls of memory - priceless memories that nothing can ever take away.
I should not be writing this, perhaps. I am not at all sure that I should be saying any of these things, least of all that I should be saying them in these columns which are committed to my keeping as a solemn responsibility by the owners of this newspaper - a responsibility of which I am at all times deeply conscious and which I strive honestly and to the best of my ability to merit. But they are not only my employers, they are likewise my friends, and I can only hope that they will understand and if it is a mistake I am confident that they will overlook it, as they have always been charitable enough to do in the past.
Today I have come forth from a house of grief, to take up life again, as all must do and as all should do. And of what can I write today, except about that which is in my heart and uppermost in my thoughts? But in the days to come I shall not wear my grief upon my sleeve but in my heart - and that is as he would have it be, I know so well.
I cannot bring to a close this feeble and utterly inadequate tribute to my dead boy without expressing from the very bottom of my heart the profound and lasting gratitude of all my household for the moving demonstration of the sincere sympathy of this community, and of many outside of this community, that has been afforded in these tragic days of sorrow through which we are passing. It has been truly wonderful, far beyond the power of words to describe, and we shall never cease to be grateful. It seems as though literally all of the people of Roanoke have come to mingle their tears with ours. People have been truly kind and the many acts of consideration that have been shown us have put us under an everlasting debt of gratitude to the community that can never be repaid.
A Knight in Shining Armor I have called him - and as such he will live always in the hearts of those who knew him. He was but one of many such - and we are but one countless of families who mourn their valiant dead. What I have written concerning my own boy can be said of many another man's son, of course, and I can but hope that other bereaved parents will realize that I have tried to speak for them, too - for of course I know full well that their own sons were quite as dear to them as mine was to me.
God has gathered them unto Himself, these gallant young Knights in Shining Armor who have died in a great cause. If they could speak to us now with the beloved voices that we shall never hear again, I am very sure that in the words of Ellen Terry, as she lay on her death bed, they would say:
If I should die and leave you here awhile,
Be not like others soon undone who keep
Long vigil by the silent dust and weep.
For my sake, turn again to life and smile,
Nerving thy heart and trembling hand to do
Something to comfort weaker hearts than mine -
Complete these dear unfinished tasks of mine,
And I, perchance, may therein comfort you.
- H.P.C.
by CNB