One Saturday morning in late September 1967, i, as a fourth class officer candidate (OC) at the Navy’s Officer Candidate School (OCS) in Newport, Rhode Island. We had just completed our Saturday morning inspection and march on the parade grounds concluding with a pass in review. i wondered about the value of such regimen. That afternoon, i sat down and wrote this poem:
Magnificent Men Marching
magnificent men marching, marching
cadence bams the air;
regimen the compass point;
warfare learning fare.
magnificent men standing, standing
fit and pompous in your ranks;
green and growing
boys to military men,
a new dimension to your arsenal.
magnificent men tall and stately,
uniformed so proud;
don’t know where you’ll be going
yet ready for the call.
magnificent men commissioned,
saluting all the men
mother and father proudly nodding;
now you are now and they are then.
magnificent men departed
the parade ground desolate, cold and bare,
don’t look into the mirror:
you’re just you,
not magnificent at all.
This past Thursday, i was playing golf on the North Island Naval Air Station’s Sea ‘n Air course. The back nine winds around the south facing beach along the Pacific Ocean. The fourteenth and fifteenth holes looks directly at Point Loma across the channel into San Diego Bay. On the ridge of Point Loma is the Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery. From my view, i could see the rows of basic headstones on the green grass sparkling in the Southwest corner sunlight.
The initial words of the following poem came into my head. i thought about how, over near sixty years, twenty-two plus years of Navy service, ten ships, and incredible time at sea, had changed my perspective:
Magnificent Men at Parade Rest
magnificent men at parade rest,
all in perfect rows in formation
on the ridge of green
looking down upon the channel
to the pacific;
they lie beneath that green
and alabaster tombstones
just like their brothers next to them
parade rest,
quiet,
at peace;
these truly magnificent men.