A Sweet Memory

A black-and-white photograph of a lovely girl I'd known when I was stationed at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii. It was taken on a beautiful secluded beach on Oahu, on a glorious sunny Saturday in early December. Diane Cooper, the girl in the photo, was my girlfriend. I'd known her for some time and found her a sweet and funny person. I was considering asking her to marry me. I figured I'd get around to formally proposing to her sometime down the road. That plan got blown to smithereens the next day, Sunday, at 7:55 am. I was down in the mess hall, having breakfast with some other early risers, when we heard explosions. I wondered what the hell was going on, so I got up from the table and went to the mess hall entrance. I saw a soldier running like crazy toward the mess hall, screaming, "They're bombing Pearl Harbor! Those dirty bastards! They're bo--" The guy, strafed by a fighter-bomber chasing him, fell to the ground, dead. Machine-gun bullets smacked the mess hall's upper wall. I got the hell out of the mess hall and ran to my unit's barracks. Soldiers were confined to Schofield Barracks until further notice. We listened to the radio when the President spoke to the nation. We were at war. It wasn't long after that orders came down and we prepared to move out. I never saw Diane again.