by W.C. Bell

Created on: March 11, 2011

Not having the courage to be a hero myself, I often wonder what possesses people who perform heroic deeds. The reasons appear to be complex and difficult to fathom. I have reflected on the subject for many years, ever since acquiring knowledge of an incident that seems to defy logic. I have never quite understood what really happened.

For the sake of the story, I'll call him Richard. It isn't his real name. He wants to conceal his identity, and I will respect his wishes. Suffice it to say, I have known him for a long time, and I know the story to be true. My only concern in telling it is that I might fumble a few of the details.

Richard was the sixth man of a fire team on the deck of a Navy destroyer. It had been sent to aid the aircraft carrier Forrestal during the disastrous fire of 29 July 1967. Since other destroyers were already attending Forrestal to windward, Richard's ship was forced to approach from the lee, the direction in which the smoke was blowing. Without a moment's hesitation, the captain took the destroyer straight into the plume, straight into the fumes of Hell.

There's no telling what was in that smoke. It burned men's eyes like acid and seared their lungs like lava. The pain was indescribable. Richard pulled his tee shirt over his head, he pulled his dungaree shirt over that and clamped his baseball cap on top of everything else in an attempt to make a smoke mask. It wasn't very effective. His eyes were soon glued shut with sticky mucous, and he had great difficulty breathing. In fact, he even tried not to breathe because every breath was pure agony.

Richard quickly reached the limit of his endurance. The torture was so great that he plotted his escape. He would jump overboard and swim away. He was fairly certain that he would be rescued by one of the helicopters from the carrier Oriskany which happened to be nearby.

It is unknown how long Richard stayed fighting the fire. He thinks it was more than a quarter hour, but under those conditions, a few seconds can seem like a lifetime. At any rate, however long it was, it was too long.

Richard was down on his hands and knees straddling the fire hose in order to prevent it from kinking. He started getting the shakes. He lost muscle control and slumped over on his left side. He had trouble concentrating. His thoughts wandered somewhere between rationality and static. He retained enough of his wits to realize he was near death from smoke inhalation. His last coherent thought before the darkness took

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