Master Chief Hughes,

I, too, teared up when I was told that some of my uncle's final conscious moments recalled happier times in the Navy he loved so much. He suffered greatly in the weeks before his death, and I am so thankful that your narrative brought him some joy.

Like most Navy corpsmen, my uncle's service was split between the fleet and the Marines. He served in the field in Korea and again in Vietnam (three tours of duty), and was highly decorated. He never discussed the details of his combat service with his family, or explained why he had been awarded so many medals for heroism. The most he ever said about it was, "I was just doing what Corpsmen do."

My uncle was directly responsible for me going into the sea services. One summer when I was a kid, I went to spend a couple of weeks with my cousins. By coincidence, the DD he was then serving in held a dependents' cruise, so my oldest cousin and I got to go to sea for a day. It was my first exposure to a real Navy ship, and I was hooked.

Many years later, after I retired, my uncle would occasionally return to Arkansas for a visit, and some of my fondest memories are sitting around with the man who introduced me to the Navy, swapping sea stories -- just two old retired swabbies. Darn, now I'm getting a little sea-spray blown into my eyes, too.