Letter to the Paratrooper

© 2001 Calvin Harrell

Dear Ed:

War is hell.

One of our famous generals said that. I don't remember which one, and it doesn't matter, because any one of them could have said it.

I enjoyed reading your World War II record in the paratroopers, and it was told in an excellent manner.

World War I was hell, World War II was hell ~ and World War III would have been the end of them all.

No more wars ~ because there would have been no more people. A stray shark here and there in the sea ~ and a stray cockroach here and there on the land would have accounted for just about all the survivors.

I was 7 years old, living on a farm in Como NC when the war began ~ and still there at age 11 when it ended.

I was too young for that war, but I almost became a participant (along with everybody else on earth) in the Third World War.

I was on the Aircraft Carrier Independence (CVA-62) when we were ordered to the Caribbean. We did not know why at the time, but later it turned out that we were there to stop the freighter from Russia that was carrying the new missiles to Cuba.

We had AD-5 Skywarriors on the catapults, with 500-pound iron bombs that could easily sink the freighter.

Castro had his finger on the "red button" for 21 missiles already in place in Cuba. Our SAC bombers were in the air already on their way to Russia, They, of course, had their red buttons too!

The Independence had stopped en route and had picked up enough nuclear weapons to sink the whole island of Cuba, (but it would not have been soon enough to prevent the release of their 21 missiles).

The silos out West were on full alert and the whole world waited ~ and waited, thinking all the while that nobody anywhere had any more "tomorrows."

Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Krushchev performed a masterful piece of negotiation ~ and then it was all over.

When we got back to Norfolk, I was allowed several days leave and I went down to Rich Square where Mama and Daddy were living at the time.

When I walked in, Mama hugged my neck and said, "I am so glad to see you, I was so worried about you."

Little did she know that my carrier was more safe than her Rich Square, but it didn't matter to Mama because she always thought of her children first.

It took me a long time to stop crying.

 

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