Eternal Patrol
images/ss_honors/honors_01.jpg
Pirates T.S. Eliot Quote - Going too far Churchhill Home Address Religion Brotherhood

SAILOR, REST YOUR OAR...

"Now and then, we have the opportunity to choose to do something that will make a difference to the world around us. Surely these men made that choice when they volunteered for duty.

"They came from large cities and small towns and villages, from ranches and farms, from pueblos and reservations.

"They were from all the families of America.

"We will not forget them.

Patrick J. Hannifin

Vice Admiral, U.S. Navy, Retired
Naval Weapons Station Seal Beach
July 1, 1999

 

 

The bell tolls...

 

 

On Eternal Patrol

 

• SSN-680.org reports 72 individuals on this list •

 

Our shipmate has passed on before us.

Whether by enemy action, the remorseless sea, or the ravages of time and age,
we must accept that God has called you to where we cannot yet follow.

We commend your body to the deep, and your soul to God Almighty.

May God grant you fair winds and following seas.

 

Godspeed, shipmate.

 

We will miss you...

 

 

 

"All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated. God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God's hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another...

"No man is an island, entire of itself, every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.

"Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

John Donne

Meditation XVII
Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions
Nunc lento sonitu dicunt, morieris.
Now this bell tolling softly for another, says to me, Thou must die.
1572 - 1631

 

 

© 2020 Brad Williamson
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USS William H. Bates (SSN 680) Association
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Permission is granted for not-for-profit reproduction of text and images under the condition that all attribution as to owner and source is included,
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