The Price We Must Pay for Our Actions

After we’d pulled out of Yokuska, later that morn­ing, I was ordered by the master-​​at-​​arms to report, in dress whites, to the Captain’s state­room for a Captain’s Mast. With my entry into the Captain’s state­room on the heels of the master-​​at-​​arms, I found the XO and a yeo­man from the ship’s office already stand­ing by. As the Cap­tain burst into the room, in his usual hur­ried man­ner, I was ordered to snap to attention.

Hav­ing snatched my records from the yeo­man, the XO pro­ceeded to read aloud the charge against me. “Mr. Drury, you’ve been charged with hav­ing vio­lated Arti­cle 92 of the Uni­form Code of Mil­i­tary Jus­tice, specif­i­cally the sec­tion which deals with dere­lic­tion in the per­for­mance of duties, in that while stand­ing watch onboard the USS David­son at 1230 hours, 13 May 1967, you did fail to report the approach of an oncom­ing tor­pedo dur­ing a fleet exer­cise. How do you plead, guilty or not guilty?“ he asked.

“Not guilty,“ I pro­claimed, as I strug­gled, like a lowly worm, to free myself from the hook that’d got­ten under the Captain’s skin. While the Cap­tain showed signs of squirm­ing around my plea, I wasn’t let off the
hook that easily.

“Because you’ve pled not guilty,“ inter­jected the XO, “you have the right, Mr. Drury, to tes­tify in your behalf or to remain silent. You may request the appear­ance, before this mast, of any wit­ness whose tes­ti­mony you believe to be per­ti­nent to your case. If you choose to present no evi­dence, that fact may not be used against you as an admis­sion of guilt. If there is any evi­dence you wish to present, you must do so at this time. Let me remind you, that what­ever you say may also be used as evi­dence against you.“

“Do you under­stand, Mr. Drury?“ he asked.

“Yes, I do,“ I replied.

“Do you have any­thing to say in your defense?“ he asked.

As I ago­nized over how I could tell the Cap­tain he’s not my mas­ter, I balked. If I told him the truth, my words would only be used against me. How could I con­vince him that my fail­ure to see the tor­pedo, as he had seen it, had lit­er­ally saved the life of my soul? How could I show him that it was he who was guilty of the greater offense here? While I’d only offended a mere mor­tal, I saw his par­tic­i­pa­tion in the exer­cise as an offense against the very soul of mankind, the Great Spirit She Who Must Be Obeyed.

“I have noth­ing to say at this time,“ I finally said in capitulation.

While the Captain’d been notice­ably unnerved by the tone of my response, as evi­denced by his fid­get­ing prior to pro­nounc­ing my guilt, he nonethe­less sen­tenced me to 30 days of extra duty. Why the words’d hardly left his mouth before he scur­ried out the door, sat­is­fied that he had dealt with this thorn in his side. Lit­tle did he know this irri­tant was in the early stages of devel­op­ing into a pearl, the pearl of great price.

Vis­i­bly shaken by the whole event, I was dis­missed and sent below. Though I still felt unwill­ing to sim­ply fall into step, I was sure glad it was all over, for now. As shy as I was, I hated these encoun­ters into which my soul forced me. And since I had no idea of just how mis­er­able these guys could make my life, I greatly feared the price I might have to pay for my actions. Unaware of the price that had already been exacted from me for my par­tic­i­pa­tion in the Navy, thus far, I would buckle under for the time being, or at least until my soul forced me into yet another predicament.