May 17, 2001
My last entry about our service (my Hawaii entries) dealt with the sinking of Kursk. Now as I prepare to PCS (Permanent Change of Station- a move), I look back and realize it hasn't been a banner year for the submarine service.
On Friday, February 9, as Sean & I were preparing for Shabbat the phone rang. In the early hours of the day, the USS Greenvile, one of the finest boats on the waterfront, collided with a Japanese fishing boat, the Ehime Maru, sinking it, and and sending it to the Pacific bottom with eleven people.
Oddly the entry ends there. I don't know what I was planning to write. It was a significant day for us. Sean immediately reported to work, spending the next 24 hours getting people off the sub and helping to deal with the fall out. I quickly learned to bake challah, and took over at AJC.
It was a sad day, one that cursed the Greenville for a long time to come. The Navy, probably like all services, is superstitious, and the Greenville was plagued with problems and accidents for years to follow. Sean and I joked about buying them a t'fillat haderekh to hang in the sub. I think we eventually did send one after Sean returned to the Reserves and we were living on Long Island.
Still the hard days are the days that remind you why you serve. Sean's current orders are being extended piecemeal. It's frustrating, not so much for the family and me, we were prepared to see him off, and to places much less hospitable than Japan, for seven months. It frustrates me on behalf of the people we serve. They deserve better. The deserve a chaplain and a rabbi who doesn't fly through, but who is there for them. Our service-people in Afghanistan and Iraq should have a chaplain of their faith for significant days, whether Hanukah or Pesach to minister to them. There is clearly a need, and while the everyone acknowledges this, no one seems able to fix it. It frustrates me, for it rubs against the grain of service that we do.
The Greenville incident was a terrible one. It took Sean from our family for Shabbat. It was not the only terrible incident. Sean spent much of my pregnancy with Gavi agonizing because of problems in another family's pregnancy, with the baby not making it. There was a suicide one Thanksgiving.
Holidays are taken; significant moments affected, but it's worth it when you know the reason and the good. This deployment has reason and good, but if it's cut short or misused than we've lost a major opportunity.
