Answers 1

Three Heroic Things My Husband Did During War Time

I met Jon around the Fourth of July in 1967. I was turning an old Studebaker Springboard wagon into a carriage for my tourist ride in Carmel. He was a young manager of the first self-serve lumber store in California. When I met him he was working the front check out and we flirted a little. Because he was only twenty, I thought he might be a match for my younger sister, Denise. I wasn’t interested in dating someone four years my junior.

I took Denise to meet him at the store and they had a pleasant exchange after which she told me she wouldn’t have much of a chance as he couldn’t stop looking at me! Me! Date a surfer! Not likely…but we did date and within three weeks were talking about our lives together.

            Jon, my brother, and my other housemate, Don Zirilli, all received their notices to sign up for Draft numbers. They went together to have blood drawn and a cursory health evaluation.

            Jon’s father told Jon his draft number would soon be called (he knew this because he was ‘CIA’).  Young men who volunteered to join a service branch had a shorter obligation than those who waited to be conscripted by the draw. I had never been close to anyone who had done this before.  My family was all about staying in college and avoiding the draft, if possible.  My own brother’s draft number was in the 360’s (there was a number for every day of the year, I remember.) so he would probably never be called. Jon’s number was lower but his dad had insider information that his number was being called soon. Jon decided to join the Navy.

            He asked me to go with him even though we weren’t a committed couple at the time. When the young men all stood and took the oath of service, I was moved by their collective offer to serve.  At that moment, I was touched by the fact that these were lives being put on the line for the United States. It was impressive and I thought him heroic for doing so.

            Jon took a three month deferment which was offered so that a group of trainees would come in during the Christmas Holidays. That was the amount of time we would have to test our relationship. When he left in late December, we were a couple who were living together. I was pretty sure he was the brightest, most interesting guy around. Three months after his training, we legalized our relationship in order to have the privileges of a married couple. We could not be together if Jon were in the service as a single man. We were in love and wanted to be together more than anything.

            After training in Florida at Flight School, the Navy wanted Jon to go to officer’s training.  He did not want to make the Navy a career and wanted out ASAP. So, he became an aviation electrician and systems troubleshooter (which would eventually give him a career in Silicon Valley!) His squadron joined the USS Enterprise for preparation training in the Pacific off Hawaii. That’s where his second heroic deed took place.  For this one he got a medal!

            I was teaching when I was informed the Enterprise had had an accident at sea which had taken 32 lives.  I was taken to the office where a TV was available. The first pictures I saw of the vessel limping into the repair docks showed a huge hole in the hull right where Jon’s sleeping quarters were. There was no word, only images of the ship, and voiceover confirming a deadly explosion.  At home, I waited for the military car which would come if he had been killed.  Eighteen hours later I got a call.  A woman’s voice said, “Your husband is okay”, and then the phone cut off. My mind was full of questions.  Who was this lady?  Was Jon not on the ship? Was he really okay?

            In the next twenty-four hours more information was allowed and, eventually, the names of those killed. After that, the sailors made calls to their loved ones and I heard the story of Jon’s involvement from him.  

            On the deck of the ship the fighter planes were aligned in their take-off configurations. The crews were busy loading live bombs, fixing mechanical problems, tweaking electronics, and getting ready to fly off and come back to land on the deck. All this preparation was necessary to make sure the crews could work together.  Separate crews wore separate colored jerseys.  Jon’s was green because he was an electronics technician.

            He was on deck doing an extended piece of work on a faulty F4 fighter jet control panel. Most of the other green shirts had been relieved and were asleep or about to be. But, Jon was fixing a problem, troubleshooting, his favorite job. A sailor on the crew responsible for starting the jet engines with a huffer (a ride-on machine which pulls air through the jet engine to rev it up before ignition) was parked, mistakenly, so that the exhaust of the starter was directed at a bomb loaded on a plane. The bomb overheated and exploded.  That explosion triggered the next, and each plane in that row affected the others, until there was a mass of burning planes and bombs and people.  As the deck heated from the explosions other planes fell through the holes and into the level below. In one area three levels were compromised and some of the quarters where personnel were sleeping were burned.

            Anyone on deck was immediately assigned to fire hose duty and Jon ended up as a nozzle man. All other crewmen were put in lockdown and many were isolated below decks for twenty hours or more. Jon always felt fortunate to some degree because he was where the action was.  He felt like he could do something and had some decisions to make. Some of his crew, one in a shower, some in bunks, died that day. If he hadn’t been staying past his shift, he would have been in his bunk.

In the Air and Space Museum or, maybe the Smithsonian, a picture commemorating the accident shows a picture of Jon manning the hose. He was a hero and lived through the horror of witnessing men running with shoes burned off, men dying, people parts and blood making the deck so slippery it was hard to stand. The jet fuel was acrid and life threatening.  The noise and repeated explosions, and the firefight, were memories which filled his nightmares for years.  And, this was just ‘practice’ for the real war. He was a hero and he hadn’t even finished training.

            When the ship pulled into the dock, Red Cross people were allowed onboard and brought orange juice and other first aid supplies.  Jon took a cup and put my phone number in it and tossed it to a civilian on the dock. The woman who called me was that man’s wife.

            The real Vietnam War was a battle being fought from the sea, in the rivers and swamps, and through the tunnels. Jon’s self-recrimination in later years centered on how many people he helped kill by preparing the bombers.  As the battle waged on, folks at home grew increasingly upset by the body counts and lack of success. The boys at the front shared this feeling to varying degrees. Jon was so affected by how he saw the war that on his second tour he decided to put his feelings on paper and submit them to his commander. He and I worked on that paper during a leave. We worked hard to express Jon’s basic reticence to join the fray, risking everything for a cause he couldn’t understand.  His duty to country, his obligation to fight for freedom, was never an issue.  However, he felt this War was unconscionable.

            That letter was very risky.  When he sent it up the chain of command his request was only that it be officially put into his service record. He told them he wanted to be sure that his opinion of the war was noted and that he could advise people in the future (his heirs) that he was fighting under protest.  Each person in the chain of command had a different take on that letter.  Some thought it treasonous.  Some agreed with the sentiment but had hands tied by protocol, nothing could go into his service record that was generated by him.  There was no precedent for that.  Others felt Jon’s presence working on the jets was risky, what if he decided to sabotage the missions? So, a Captain’s Mast was held. This is a form of disciplinary hearing.  There were a number of people there including those favorable to Jon and those opposed to him and his request. When it was over he was allowed to remain in his position with no restrictions, and the letter was attached to a review form and included in his service record.  He won.  But, he didn’t win because he was right!  The Navy never went that far.  Instead, they allowed the attachment.  And that was a win, too.  Later, many officers sought him out to commend the way he had handled a very sensitive issue. They also told him how close he had been to being court-martialed for treason!  But, they had no grounds as his only infraction was asking that a letter be put in his file. He was proud of having walked that line.  It was scary at the time.  But, he was very principled in that way.  He was heroic.

            For me, it is moving to revisit these stories, especially this set in which I can recall how I looked up to him, how he embodied a romantic ideal of service, dedication, perseverance, trust and nobility of purpose. And, he was steadfast.  I expected that would last us forever.