As We Go… This We Know

2016 02 03 Wednesday

It is just cold enough to be uncomfortable. Those crew members not on watch are assembled at parade rest on the flight deck. We’re steaming north with the California coast to our starboard side. I am looking west into a pale yellow afternoon. It is 1630, and the sun is halfway to the horizon. It peaks through a broken, high-altitude, overcast sky. The clouds and water are painted in bright diffuse silver where the sunlight shines through the thinner layers. It has the makings of a spectacular winter sunset.

As I stare straight forward, it is difficult to see little else, which is a shame, really. This is a ceremony I would like to observe more closely. Standing in the front row, it would be too obvious if I were to turn my head and watch. Someone is reading a Bible verse and then a prayer. I wish we could have been dead-ship for this exercise. I can barely make out the words over the incessant rumble of the engines and generators. I fight the urge to roll my shoulders and tuck my hands into my belt at the small of my back. My shoulders are still sore from handcuff and close-quarters training earlier in the day. Someone reads the Lord’s Prayer, and we join in. Our voices are a bass undertone to the engines, but I can still hear the words clearly from my shipmates.

One of the junior officers walks into my field of view. He moves at a slow, measured pace. His face is expressionless. His dress uniform is sharp; the gold rank insignia of an ensign gleams in the sunlight along with the mirror polish on his shoes. He is the perfect picture of an officer. Held at elbow height is a polished box of deep mahogany. The rest of the crew, not in dress uniform, look shabby by comparison. Even our clean Operational Dress Uniforms, the standard, everyday working blue trousers and blouses, look pretty rough. Cutter life is hard on clothes. Hell, it’s hard on the people wearing them.

The Boatswains Mate First Class blows his pipe (an old-style nautical whistle that resembles a pipe). It is a sharp, shrill note ordering the crew to come to attention. The executive officer (XO) barks a command. The formation snaps to. Our hands swiftly drop down from the small of our backs to make fists in line with the outside seams of our pants. Simultaneously our heels come together, and our toes point out at a 45-degree angle. We all wobble slightly in place as the ship chugs over the slow rolling swells. The Gunners Mate First Class starts barking instructions. Besides the sunset, the only other features of note are the three crewmen holding rifles. They’re standing in front of the formation to my left, facing us. They snap the weapons up, holding them vertically in front of their chest at present arms.

The captain’s voice rolls out over us and drowns out the engines. 

“To you, O Lord, we commend the soul of your servant, Frank H. Grubaugh, that having departed from this world he may live with you:  and whatever sins he has committed through the frailty of human nature, in your most tender mercy, forgive and wash away. Through Christ our Lord, Amen. Come to his assistance, Angels of the Lord, receive his soul and bear it into the presence of the Most High, and may the Angels escort him into the heavens.”

“Commit the ashes to the deep.”

The XO barks again, and our right hands go flat, stiff as blades. They come to the brims of our covers in a swift motion. On the fantail, the ensign pours the ashes into our wake and salutes. 

After a moment, we drop the salute and come to attention, then parade rest. The rifles are lowered to the deck and held by their handguards, forward outward at an angle. Another poem prayer is read.

“Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, let perpetual light shine upon them, and may their souls and all the souls of the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace. Amen.”

The sharp whistle of the boatswain’s pipe sings out, and we immediately snap to attention. The firing squad comes to port arms, rifles angled across their chests. They turn to the left and take aim at the sun. The XO barks, and we render another crisp salute. The squad fires seven times in slow succession.

Bang      Bang      Bang      Bang      Bang      Bang      Bang

The brass from spent shell casings skip and chime off the flight deck. The high-pitched, almost musical sound is a strange counterpoint to the hollow report of the blank ammunition and the diesel’s quiet thunder. We stand there, hands at our covers, rifles in the air.

One of the most mournful and lonely pieces of music I know beings to play – Taps. No one sings them anymore, but the words to this particular piece of music are as follows.

“Day is done, gone the sun
From the lakes, from the hills, from the sky
All is well, safely rest
God is nigh.

Fading light dims the sight
And a star gems the sky, gleaming bright
From afar, drawing near
Falls the night.

Thanks and praise for our days
Neath the sun, ‘neath the stars’, ‘neath the sky’
As we go, this we know
God is nigh.”

Despite my fatigue from being underway for weeks now; despite the fact that I look like a mile of bad road in uniform; despite my frustration with work, separation from my loved ones, and my general irreverence for ANY ceremony regardless of its origin, faith, or long-standing tradition… Despite all of this, I stand a little straighter. My posture goes a little more rigid. The least I can do is take a few minutes out of my day to honor the last wishes of a man who took the oath and served his 20. Sailors are a strange lot when it comes to death. Since we began waging war from ships, we have honorably buried the enemy at sea alongside our comrades. Regardless of one’s nation, there is an unspoken bond between those crazy enough to go beyond the sight of land for a living, even more so for those who do so and take up arms. I never knew Chief Grubaugh of the United States Navy, but I do know that were our roles reversed, he would have done the same for me.

The whistle sings out again, and we return to attention, hands by our sides. The rifles return to order arms, standing straight by their bearers’ legs. We are dismissed.

I stand there a moment and brood. The cold wind of our passage caresses me and bites through my uniform, sinking into my skin. It is an appropriate sensation for commending a man’s remains to the cold black of the sea. It is a beautiful afternoon to hold a funeral.

_______________________

K.C. Aud has made a career of being lucky and has managed to find something positive in nearly every poor decision he’s ever made, even if it was only a new perspective on how not to do something.

Enlisting in the U.S. Coast Guard in 2010 he became an Operations Specialist (radio and navigation) and did his first tour in Georgia guarding submarines from drunk fishermen. In 2014, tired of the heat and the bugs he transferred to a 210-foot medium endurance cutter in Washington state. The cutter then regularly deployed to the hot and buggy west coast of Central America to hunt down drug runners. Aboard USCGC Active he traveled 94,194 miles and personally handled enough cocaine to keep a small country high for a decade. Somewhere in there, he learned to write, if not spell.  

Three years later, daunted by the prospect of spending the rest of his career in a windowless command center, he separated from active duty. After 13 different jobs ranging from beer brewer to dairy farmhand, to machinist, to Navy civilian contractor, he reenlisted in 2020 as a Coast Guard reservist, changing rates to Maritime Law Enforcement Specialist. When not helping the Navy assets in the Puget Sound troubleshoot radios, he’s on drill in Seattle doing water cop stuff and or flailing away at his keyboard. Though married and now a father, he misses the mission. 

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.