Honoring a Hero

The prompt yesterday for Poem-a-day was to write a historic poem, then today, we were to write a poem about a moment. This is my combination of both.
 

At the Turn of a Dime

  

Pacific blue held them as the day at sea

began like so many others.

Each man had duties to preform,

each holding tomorrow dreams within.

In a flash of airborne light, their reverie

cracked, like their ship, as bombs and planes

came raining down upon them.

  

My Dad, the greatest hero of my life,

stood at his station when his CO,

a young man, barely old enough for war,

ordered him to help put out a fire at the bow.

Snapping to in rote military fashion,

Dad ran down the deck to the fire hose.

As he turned to douse hell’s fury on the deck,

a kamikaze slammed like an errant meteor

full force into the destroyer steel of his station.

From the bow, he turned to see the crumpled iron;

where he had stood moments before lay

torn open as if the ship were made of paper.

  

Deep pacific blue held him safe that day,

returning him to land and those he loved.

But, Neptune took the CO,

a young man, barely old enough for war.

Linda M. Rhinehart Neas © 2015