2015 REUNION
Our Next REUNION SET FOR Naples FL.
SEPTEMBER\OCTOBER 2017
This is the poem Lois Williams read to the women at the 2009 reunion in San Diego
BACK THEN
This phrase, weighted
with memory,
echoes through the
crowd
gathered to celebrate
the
re-connection of the
submarine crew.
The hospitality room
is ringing with
hearty laughter and
back-slapping cheer.
We move through the
room,
slipping from one group
to another
and hear over and
over again,
“Back Then”.
Back when?
Back to the glory
days
of torpedoes and
missiles and watch-standing,
pride of service and
teamwork
that can never again
be matched.
Oh, it was all so
different…
back then.
Stories are dredged
up from memory banks,
re-surfaced and
trotted out to be examined;
of days of danger,
fear, storms and uncertainty,
of duty and boredom.
It was their job,
yes, but so much more.
It defined them,
unified them,
and the bond can
never be broken.
For these few days,
once more, they are young;
they are sailors;
they are heroes.
Memories from “back
then” live again.
And we, who were we,
back then?
We also served. We
were the glue
that helped to hold
the crews together.
Carrying
responsibility, loneliness
and sometimes
heartbreak, on our shoulders
with determined
courage; we, too, are heroes.
And so we come,
releasing once more our men
to the drama of
rehashing their pasts,
celebrating the
contribution they have made
to our country’s
freedom.
Escaping the sameness
of everyday lives,
they polish pride and
patriotism into
another shining
memory.
We come, too, we
wives,
standing tall in our
own reconnections,
somehow comprehending
the need
to return to the land
of
“Back Then”.
We look into each
other’s eyes with recognition
that cannot be
explained, a bond that,
for us, too, is never
broken.
We can be proud that
WE survived;
did our duty; held it
together
—and continue to do
so—
so that we will
understand at our very core
the
phrase…“Remember?…Back Then.”
© Lois Williams
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