Meeting Nimitz

As I remember...  Admiral Chester W. Nimitz came aboard our ship [to award the medals]. Some of us were below deck patching up damage when a fire broke out. Someone yelled, "Get an extinguisher!" So, I ran up the ladder to get the one that was on the topside deck. I bumped into an officer who said, "Where in the heck (maybe the other word) are you going in such a hurry, son?" I said, "To get an extinguisher to put out a fire, sir," and kept going. Later someone asked me if I knew who I had bumped into. My answer was, "No, I didn’t."  To my surprise, I was told it was Admiral Nimitz himself!

—Frank L. Dolan's account

Admiral Nimitz assuming command of Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor
December 31, 1941
Source: WWII Database

When Presidents Were Patriots & Poets

John Quincy Adams, the  6^th President of the United States, once wrote, "Could I have chosen my own genius and condition, I would have made myself a great poet.”  Indeed, after his death, many of his poems were collected and published in Poems of Religion and Society (1848).  Here’s one of my favorite of his devotional lyrics that combines his artistry and Christian confession.

The Hour-Glass

Alas!  How swift the moments fly!

How flash the years along!

Scarce here, yet gone already by,

The burden of a song.

See childhood, youth, and manhood pass,

And age, with furrowed brow; rime was—

Time shall be—drain the glass

But where in Time is now?

Time is the measure but of change;

No present hour is found;

The past, the future, fill the range

Of Time's unceasing round.

Where, then, is now?

In realms above,

With God's atoning Lamb,

In regions of eternal love,

Where sits enthroned I AM.

Then, pilgrim, let thy joys and tears

On Time no longer lean;

But henceforth all thy hopes and fears

From earth's affections wean:

To God let votive accents rise;

With truth, with virtue, live;

So all the bliss that Time denies

Eternity shall give.