I've shared some of the things I've written on CB before, so I'll try it again. After watching the movie The Finest Hours, I was reminded of an essay I wrote some time ago based on a personal experience in the early 60's. There is a moral to the story in the following. Here is the essay, Fear and Decision:

For the past half hour we had been making our approach, trying to go alongside the oiler to refuel. Our 360 foot destroyer would top a swell, its stern, screws, and rudder nakedly exposed in the air, then plunge down the undulating mountain of water and slam drunkenly into the base of the next swell. The ship shuddered and shook like a benumbed animal as it struggled to free itself from the hold of the sea and begin again the repetitious climb to the top of another unconquered wave.

We watched the gray mass that was the oiler as it rolled, dipped, lurched, and then buried itself in another swell. The wind tore at the fragments of the crushed wave that leaped from under the oiler’s hull, ripping and shredding the water into boiling maelstroms of spray that were swept in raking attacks over the oiler and our ship.

The men in the refueling detail’s main deck in-haul party huddled behind the bulkhead, seeking protection from the wind-driven sea that stung their faces. Orders were orders and if the squadron commander insisted on refueling, the Captain had no choice and neither did we. We were soaked and our life jackets were beginning to feel like leaded chest packs. Water was running down the deck up to our knees every time the ship pitched and rolled to starboard. We were closing on the oiler now. It was like riding a surrealistic elevator, one moment we would be looking down on the main deck of the oiler and the next we would be looking up at its black bottom as it heaved up and away from us.

As the distance between the two ships narrowed, the sea channeled into a flood that swept down the main deck of the destroyer, tearing at anything in its way. Water now surged past us waist deep, sweeping our feet loose, threatening to take us overboard. We held on lichen-like as a sense of desperation began to show on the faces of several in the detail. Would the next surge be stronger than we were? The ships were being pulled and pushed by the growing storm-fed swells in a way that left the helm without complete control. At times, we were at the mercy of the sea and went where it took us like a piece of flotsam tossed and driven in the surf.

The force of the storm would rip the refueling hose apart if we were successful in getting it across the space between the oiler and the destroyer. Nothing could form a link between the two ships and withstand the massive force of the swells that dominated the movement and position of anything in the water. Attempts by those topside to pass a line between the ships had met with repeated failure. What type of tunnel vision mentality could continue to entertain thoughts of completing a refueling under the conditions that we were in? Logic and common sense both screamed that it was impossible, but that scream of reason was apparently lost in the moaning howl of the elements.

Each succeeding swell pushed the two ships closer and closer together. An impending sense of disaster began to grip us – there was no human control of the ship; the sea was in ultimate command as long as we attempted to maintain the position we were in. Time after time the wave action carried the destroyer towards the side of the oiler and certain collision, our salvation seeming only to be the mountain mass of water that was being pushed together between the two ships.

And then, it happened. The destroyer surged towards the oiler as the other ship rose up a swell and we found ourselves at the bottom, without a sea mass between the ships, with nothing to impede the force that was carrying the destroyer and the oiler towards each other. With water swirling and pulling at the men in the refueling detail, we pinned ourselves against the bulkhead, trying to press our bodies through steel as the gray wall that was the oiler moved menacingly closer and closer. The sky was blocked by the approaching ship, there was nothing but gray-black doom bearing down upon us. Brush marks in the orange primer spots on the side of the oiler were visible now and still the ships continued to close on each other.

Five feet, two feet … we braced for the impact. Eyes closed and body functions became involuntary for some. Enough was enough, and orders or not, duty or not, I began yelling “Secure the in-haul party!” As I, and the others, struggled off of the main deck, leaving the impending point of collision, I felt our ship shift to port, still just inches from contact with the oiler. Slowly the destroyer began to pull away towards safety; sanity had finally regained control on the bridge. It was over.

Our destroyer and the squadron continued in the storm for several days without refueling. The main deck and the first level of the ship were secured and no one was allowed outside without safety lines attached, yet the conditions were not much worse than when we had attempted the aborted refueling. What is it that causes some leaders to persist in the pursuit of something that conditions dictate should be abandoned or deferred? As soon as the attempt to refuel was over, it was obvious to all that the conditions would not have allowed a refueling operation to be successful and no further attempts were made until after the storm had abated. Why had it taken the Captain so long to realize that the ship and some of his men were in jeopardy when it was so obvious to those of us on the main deck?

The answer to that question may be found in having an awareness of ourselves and our environment. Making a decision to change is contingent upon becoming aware first. I see this incident, as a type, repeated in life’s experiences over and over again. Those of us that are aware of ourselves, our circumstances, and our environment, and then courageously act from that awareness, are indeed the fortunate ones.