Stories from a life. #3

                                                    Sunrise Service in the South China Sea

  For two months early in 1962 our battalion, (2nd Battalion, 9th Marine Regiment) was aboard the USS Princeton.  We sailed the western Pacific occasionally making port in places like the Philippine Islands or Hong Kong.  Strategically, we were the ready landing force should there be trouble anywhere in east Asia.
   The time aboard ship coincided with Easter.  On Easter Sunday chairs were set up on the flight deck and all aboard were invited to a sunrise service on the deck.  It was a beautiful, clear, calm morning with only smooth swells rolling across the water.  The service was scheduled so that the sun rose about half way through.  It was a setting that cannot easily be replicated.
   Do I remember anything about the service itself.  No, but I have never forgotten that remarkable setting and that the service was well attended.  In those days I wasn't into those things so much but I should have sought out the chaplain to thank him.