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MILITARY OFFICER
DECEMBER 2016 $4.75 THE OFFICIAL MAGAZINE OF MOAA | NEVER STOP SERVING®
GRACE UNDER FIREIRE
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exploits of the heroic military nurses during the attack gave me a better understanding of what my father experienced.
“ Reading of the
—Col. Christopher D. Stratton, USA (Ret)
”
Trouble in Paradise Your article “Paradise Under At- tack,” in the December 2016 edition of Military Offi cer, had special mean- ing for me. In 1941, my father, Victor C. Stratton, M.D., was a surgeon and newly assigned to the destroyer USS Bagley [DD-386]. He got to Pearl Harbor to join the ship just in time for that day of infamy. His only com- ment about his experience was that he was on shore leave when the at- tack occurred. [Like] many [people] my age with a father who served in World War II, I didn’t have the forethought to ask questions and seek details about his experiences. Reading of the exploits of the heroic military nurses during the attack gave me a better understanding of what my father experienced. My fa- ther served on several destroyers and went on to become a fl ight surgeon and was eventually assigned to the aircraft carrier USS Hornet [CV-12]. [He] went on to serve 20 years in the U.S. Navy and retired in 1961 as chief of surgery from the naval hospital in San Diego. Many thanks to Meribeth Meixner Reed and Rachel Barth for an excellent and meaningful article. — Col. Christopher D. Stratton, USA (Ret)
Life Member, Miramar (Calif.) Chapter Escondido, Calif.
I served in the Navy, the Coast Guard, and the Army, and there was some- thing [in the December issue] per- taining to each of these services. I am also a nurse, so the “Paradise Under Attack” article was especially inter- esting and inspiring. I have never heard anything like it and the incred- ible role the Navy nurses played dur- ing such a devastating assault.
10 MILITARY OFFICER FEBRUARY 2017 I appreciate how your magazine
keeps us (retirees) and all mem- bers informed of every aspect of what is pertinent for our well-being and the protection of the benefi ts we enjoy. —Capt. Daphne Stroup, USA (Ret) Davidson, N.C.
The article on nurses at Pearl Har- bor … was appropriate to the month and very moving. It recalls for all of us the huge number of people doing a large number of jobs to keep our military’s spear point sharp. In the article, I noticed some minor
inaccuracies. … [Captain] Reed refers to “jets roaring and then crashing,” an impossibility since jet aircraft were never available in the Pacifi c theater during the war. Would that they were! The aircraft were bombing, not
shelling. Shells come from artillery, and the main Japanese fl eet was a couple of hundred miles away to the north.
Gas masks are more correctly re-
ferred to as protective masks, because they fi lter out more than just gaseous materials. The smoke plaguing the nurses was laden with particulates, which would have been kept out of their lungs by the protective masks. USS Arizona (BB-39) was most
likely sunk by a bomb that entered the ship’s bow near Turret II, penetrat- ing to an area where ammunition was stored. The resulting explosion eff ec- tively tore the ship in half, causing it to sink quickly. The “smokestack,” or funnel, collapsed into the ruin. These minor details did not detract
from the article’s impact, but I do be- lieve in getting all the facts right. — Lt. Col. Edgar N. Jaynes Jr., USA (Ret) via email
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