Gaining the ladder to the upper decks, they began the arduous task of climbing, helping Dominic along the way during each step. Twenty-five feet above the deck was a critical point on the ladder as there was a constant distracting spillage of seawater into the access portal from above and the exit was only feet away.
"Hold tight, Dominic!" called Joe as a sudden heavy wall of water came plummeting down from above. In the process, Dominic's weakened and sore ribs caused him to let go of the ladder and he fell. Joe looked below him a moment too late before realizing that Dominic had literally been washed away from his position.
"Dominic!" shouted Joe in a fury. The armorer's body had fallen right past the Iraqi crewman who was holding onto the ladder tightly as well. Unable to quickly go around the crewman, Joe opted to simply leap from the rungs and fall straight down. He plunged into the water and his feet immediately and harshly touched bottom, before he pushed off and came to the surface. "Dom?" he shouted again as he looked wildly about for his partner.
Suddenly, from above, a second wall of water plummets down, knocking the Iraqi loose from his tight grip of the rungs. He fell awkwardly and, along the way, slammed his head with deadly force upon one of the large steel outcroppings. Before his limp body even hit the surface of the water below, he was already dead, his head a massive gory mess resembling a squashed grape. Dominic suddenly surfaced only feet from Joe, spluttering and coughing up seawater.
"Dominic!" Joe called. "Are you okay?"
Before he could answer, a third wave of the assaulting seawater fell from above and Joe watched in frustration as Dominic in his weakened state was swept away from the wall and sucked right through the portal and back into the engine room. Joe held tightly onto the pipe that protruded from the passage wall before a submerged great thud occurred beneath him. The suction that had been testing the limits of every fiber of muscle in his body, then ceased. Joe realized in fear that the engine room door had closed, possibly trapping Dominic inside without hope for rescue.
Diving beneath the water, he swam handily toward the engine room door and pulled on the handle. The vacuum of this chamber was almost one hundred-percent certain and no amount of pulling on the door would make it humanly possible to open it again. Joe realized all this in seconds, but he was nevertheless going to try anyway.
When he reached the door, just as he suspected, the door was immovable. Pulling as he might with all his strength, was still not enough to release the door from its jamb. Then, in the framed window upon the door, appeared the face of Dominic. Frantically, he waved to Joe, indicating that he should leave the area while there was still time. Stubbornly, Joe disregarded Dominic's pleas and remained by the door, struggling to open it. Dominic pressed a photograph of he and Emily up against the window of the porthole. Pointing to Joe, he smiled.
As his breath escaped in bubbled screams, Joe pulled on the door, but to no avail. Violently, he shook his head, adamant that his friend had to survive this. He pulled on the door until his breath was gone and he took another long look at Dominic. His friend smiled, nodded, and opened his mouth, gulping in the seawater. He body began to convulse and twist as his eyes bulged in their sockets. Joe merely watched in terrified comprehension as Dominic ceased his struggling and began floating listlessly in his watery grave beyond the door.
Joe kicked toward the surface and found air for his lungs, desperately gasping for breath. Looking up, he noticed that the interior lights began to flicker. He realized that he had to find his way out of the ship before it completely submerged beneath the dark waters of the Gulf.
As his lungs began to expand with pain and pressure and his eyes puffed with the stinging displeasure of saltwater on his wide-open ocular organs, he spotted what appeared to be the very rough and uninviting surface of the ocean. Breaking the surface was a wonderful feat of stamina, as he took in large quantities of air through his mouth and nose. However, the rain and the winds had caused a terrific shamal of unrelenting and remorseless torture. There was a feeling of hopelessness attached to it. Joe spluttered and looked about him, hearing suddenly the welcoming sound of a helicopter's rotor blades beating back the biting precipitation.
His eyes, bleary and waterlogged, looked upward into the starry sky to behold an SH-60B hovering above the nearly-submerged Samra. The debris field of flotsam was extensive and widespread and Joe hoped that he wouldn't be mistaken for just another piece of garbage. Just as this thought occurred to him, he was bathed in the reassuring beam of light that told him he would be safe.
The bulk of the great tanker, Samra, had disappeared beneath the surface of the ocean, closing a chapter in the life of this vessel, as well as in the life of this sailor.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Homeward Bound
The warmth of Toni's smile came to Joe as he eyes cleared and he looked up at her. His body felt weightless and his senses bobbed in the nothingness of euphoria. She reached out slowly and stroked his cheek. Her lips moved and she was speaking his name, but his auditory senses were numb.
"I can't hear you," he murmured to her, but she continued to smile down at him. "Toni…"
Then, a strange noise began to grow in his head. Her voice began to come through, but it was strange and garbled.
"Joe!" came the cry, but sounded as if it was playing through a tunnel. "Joe!"
"Toni!" he shouted, but her face faded. "Toni! Toni!"
The lovely, angelic face of his wife turned to blackness and he was alone in the pitch of the night. Water was falling on his face and he suddenly became aware that he was lying flat on his back and someone was hurting him...or killing him!
His eyes wildly looked about and, directly above him, a dark shadow was smothering him, pushing down upon his chest and causing him to lose his breath. He attempted to struggle, to break free from his attacker, but his arms and legs wouldn't respond and he was sure that the terrorist above him was going to put an end to his life.
With sudden recognition, however, he realized with stunning sharpness that his attacker was no adversary at all.
"C'mon, buddy!" the man yelled into the howling winds. "Joey! My man! Don't go, man!"
Joe realized as well that he was lying inside the RHIB as the storm continued to rage around them. The craft rocked and bobbed crazily. His vest was open and his hat was missing.
"Sexton…" he managed as he looked up to see the face of the young sailor above him.
"Pigz!" Sexton shrieked in a pitchy yodel. "Holy Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! You're alive, you son-of-a-bitch!" Joe struggled to raise his arms and sit up, but Sexton restrained him. "Oh, no, no, no, no! You stay put, hero! I'm taking you home."
"I feel sick," Joe muttered with a lousy heartburn boiling up within his throat. Without warning, he began vomiting seawater.
"Good, good," soothed Sexton as he climbed back to the motor and started it up. "Let it all out, Pigz."
He eased on the throttle and began climbing and falling sharply upon the rolling surf, briny spray catching them in the faces as they puttered in the direction toward the dimmed lights of the Leyte Gulf.
"Dominic," Joe offered as he propped himself up on his elbows, wiping an abundance to saliva from his chin.
"What's that, Pigz?" yelled Sexton over the strong winds.
"Dominic," he said loudly and sadly. "He didn't make it." Sexton's face fell and he looked off the side of the boat so that Joe wouldn't see him welling up in tears.
"I figured," he managed.
"Hahn didn't make it, either," Joe elaborated. Sexton bowed his head and closed his eyes tightly. "Sexton!" The young armorer looked up toward Joe. "You saved my life," he said softly with a smile. "You're a hero." Sexton stared blankly. "My son is going to know your name."
The young sailor continued to stare. He then looked down at the floor of the RHIB absently.
"Dominic was my friend," he lamented. Joe's smile faded.
"I know," replied Joe softly. "Mine, too."
Recovery for Joe was dif
ficult. Physically, he was able to be back on duty within days. The beating that he continued to take wasn't to his body, but more to his psyche. For him to realize only a day or so ago that he, Sexton, and Schmidt were the only survivors of the Samra boarding party was nearly unimaginable. He thought back to the day when they all stood upon the prow, awaiting instructions by Meeks regarding their planned by-the-book operations while on board the Iraqi tanker, and it was difficult to imagine that the two most capable individuals in the party, Dominic and Hahn, would not be returning.
The sick bay stay was short and, as far as Joe was concerned, had ended not a moment too soon. All he did was sit, propped up in the bunk, watching bad television and popping pills. And, of course, mulling over what had happened and what could have happened on the merchant vessel. The worst part of it all was that the Navy couldn't even recover the bodies from the wreckage of the ship due to his report regarding the nuclear device in the hull. Thankfully, the device had never detonated. Had it done so, Joe would not be here today. In fact, most everyone on this ship would be gone as well. Dominic and Hahn, Meeks and Farina, would all have to remain at the bottom of the Persian Gulf in perpetuity, forever linked with the tragedy of that day. God knew when (and if) that device would ever blow. Joe hoped briefly that it would at least take out a few enemy ships when it finally did. The Navy would mark the spot and monitor the decay of the hull until it would become a danger zone. Then, they would warn all commercial and military vessels away from the area…just in case.
Abdulrahman Aziz, leader of the terrorist HuJI-B, was brought to justice, at least in the jurisprudence sense. He had been fished out of the ocean by MacLeod's RHIB crew and placed into custody. He was long regarded as one of the top ten most dangerous men in the Middle Eastern terrorist network chain of command and, now that he was under arrest and being detained by the U.S. military, his expertise was absent from the organization. His group, only one day after the wreck of the Samra, had already martyred him, believing him dead. Even when the Pentagon and the State Department released information and photographs surrounding his detainment, his network announced that the man in the photographs was merely an imposter and that the real Aziz had perished after taking out half of the Fifth Fleet. Aziz, meanwhile, wasn't talking, which was expected. He was one, mean son-of-a-bitch, after all, thought Joe. The only consolation in that realm was that Aziz would never see the light of day again for the rest of his natural life.
Joe gazed up at the artificial lighting above him and allowed his thoughts to drift away toward the mainland of Virginia where his wife and beautiful baby boy were waiting. It wouldn't be long before he would be reunited with them and that, alone, brought his spirits up to the task at hand: the funereal presentation of the boarding party. His dress uniform was ready and waiting for him on a hanger on the wall beside the bunk and he was not even remotely enthusiastic about attendance. Of course, as was the case with most things in the military, one just had to do one's duty…whether or not you liked it.
Rising slowly from his bed, Joe stretched and looked over at a loudly snoring Schmidt. His shoulder was bandaged up from the surgery to remove the bullet lodged in his chest. It had shattered his clavicle and one of his lungs was partially collapsed, but he was in tremendously good spirits when Joe had chatted with him a few hours ago. When he learned that the ship had gone down and that they had lost everyone except for the two of them and Sexton, he crossed himself and said a mass of Hail Mary's before falling fast asleep from the drugs they were pumping into his veins.
Captain Thompson stood upon a makeshift platform on the sprawling deck of the Gulf before the entire crew in full regalia of their best. Behind the captain was a long table with framed photographs of the four sailors who had gone down with the Samra, of which, Meeks, Farina, and Hahn, bore Purple Hearts, the medals draped neatly over the images. The captain removed the final medal from its case and turned to gently lay it across the photo of Dominic. Joe's tears flowed down his cheeks as he watched from the rank and file, standing at the position of attention. The silence was deafening. To his left, he could see that Sexton was keeping a brave face and, beyond, in a wheelchair and nodding off, was Schmidt, an IV bag on a pole standing conveniently next to him. He had been advised to forego the deck procession, but refused to stay behind in the sick bay.
The other cruiser and the Roosevelt were moored in calm waters close by as the sun was high in the sky. The flags on all the ships stood at half-mast. Along the rails could be viewed all the sailors from each of the other battle group ships and they, too, stood at attention.
The captain turned to face the formation and looked out somberly upon his crew. The senior staff stood off to his left, gathered at attention as well, when he addressed the men and women in front of him.
"There are no words to convey my sadness on this day," the captain began, his voice projecting through the speaker system of the ship and echoing across the water. "These honors that I bestow today upon these selfless individuals are not mine to give…nor are they even the Navy's to grant. But they are yours to lay upon them. For these four brave people had the courage and the strength and the devotion to duty to give their own lives, so that ours might be spared."
The captain paused and regarded the formation from side to side, his eyes finally coming to rest upon his loyal senior staff.
"Not long ago, I lost my own son in battle and it was devastating," he continued in reverence. "But he died doing his duty and I am proud of him for that. I honor him. I look up to him." He swallowed hard and put his hands behind his back. "But when a man must make decisions based on his devotion to duty, and must order others into the fray to complete missions that seem utterly chaotic or foolhardy or just plain dangerous, there is no consolation when things go awry. These wonderful men and this woman gave up their civilian freedoms to serve a most magnificent nation and its vision of freedom for the entire human race. They did their duty willingly, without question, and without so much as requiring a simple 'thank you.'"
Clearing his throat, he took a sip of tea from his cup that sat on a small platform in front of him. The senior staff had begun to show signs of affection for their captain as Graft wiped tears from his eyes.
"Today, we honor them for their courage and strength of character. And we say to them as they enter the Gates of Heaven, 'Thank you from the bottoms of our hearts. Thank you.'" The captain removed his cover and bowed his head while the rest of the crew followed in kind. "Lord, take these souls and place them in your keep, use them to do your bidding for they are soldiers of righteousness. Guide them and allow them to watch over us in our endeavors to conquer fear and drive back the evil that surrounds us. Allow us to steel ourselves to the influences of hate and help us to bring these destroyers of human civilization to justice. Keep us clearheaded and merciful, lord, and let the deeds of these extraordinary people inspire us to fight on in the name of good and liberty. In Jesus' name, Amen."
Looking up amongst the murmurs of 'Amen's', the captain put his cap back on and resumed his eulogy.
"These are only the first few who will die during this war. The world has changed, ladies and gentlemen. September Eleventh was a tipping point and no longer will terrorism and evil be tolerated by our great nation. We are compassionate and are the greatest force for good upon this planet…but these villains mistook compassion for weakness. They awoke the sleeping dragon. And they paid the terrible price. These men and this woman behind me…they did not die in vain. They made the ultimate sacrifice to die for their country…and we will never allow them to have died unnecessarily. Every time we thwart another evil plot to kill innocents, think of these four sailors…Meeks…Farina…Seputa…and Hahn. We revere them because they honored us. And, of course, let us not leave out the amazing endeavors of the three surviving members of the boarding party…Pignataro –"
"Pigz!" someone shouted from the deck. The captain, his staff, and many in the formation laughed. Joe shook his head with a grin.
> "Sexton…and Schmidt," the captain finished.
Schmidt continued to snore as they looked in his direction.
"Hoo-ra!" the captain shouted with enthusiasm the crew was not accustomed to witnessing.
"Hoo-ra!" came the answer from the entire three ships' crews and staff. In answer, the tremendous five-inch guns of the other ships fired off loud blasts into the sky. Joe looked over toward Sexton who was crying and watching the sky. Their eyes met and they nodded at one another. Joe mouthed the words, "thank you." Sexton gave him a mock salute.
The traffic was, as always along the highway leading from the base, was ridiculous. Joe drove along the road at a crawl in the white Jetta. He glanced at his watch, and then ahead. He opened his window and craned his neck to see ahead past the large minivan in front of him.
"Aw, c'mon with this shit!" he cursed as he looked behind him at the long line of cars. He gazed straight ahead into the back window of the Caravan and, suddenly, decided in his mind what he was going to do about this. Turning the wheel sharply to his right, he pressed slowly on the accelerator and hopped up onto the curb and into the grassy lawn that lined the highway. The face on the guy behind him was comical as he began driving over the bumpy surface past all the angry motorists. He kept going, convinced that it didn't matter if he was stopped. He was a war hero, after all.
Amazingly, no MPs or police officers spotted his traffic violation and he cruised easily to his exit in the city. From there, he was only three minutes from his destination. As he weaved from lane to lane and disregarded amber traffic lights, he even adopted the practice of stopping at red lights and then looking both ways before proceeding through the intersection. Soon, he had arrived and parked in the garage of the huge building. Grabbing up the large bouquet of flowers and the stuffed toy tiger, he rushed from his car, forgetting to lock the doors.
A SEA STORY: THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE U.S. NAVY RESPONSE TO 9/11. Page 18