From Pearl Harbor to 9/11: One Final Mission for Love of the United States to Respect, Heal, and Remember
74
From Pearl Harbor to 9/11: One Final Mission for Love of the United States to Respect, Heal, and Remember
74eBook
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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781546271024 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | AuthorHouse |
| Publication date: | 01/22/2019 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 74 |
| File size: | 84 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
My name is Michael Cahill. I had the honor and privilege to know, care for, and call Pearl Harbor survivor John Seelie my friend during the last four years of his life. John had one of the sharpest minds, quickest wits, and greatest love for this country I have ever known. John Seelie was a treasured national hero to me, to those he met, and to those who knew him. John was one of the toughest people I ever knew. I never found anyone in the four years I knew him who did not admire and appreciate him.
John Seelie was stationed that morning at Hanger 1, Schofield Barracks, Wheeler Airfield. He was one of the first to hear and see the Japanese planes attack. Seventy-six years and six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, he was driven by his love for America to honor, remember, and pay his respects to those lost on September 11, forever tying together the two attacks on American soil. This is his story in many of his own words.
"My name is John Seelie. I was at Schofield Barracks and Wheeler Field on December 7, 1941. I was a corporal in the army in the Twenty-Fifth Division. I was assigned to Wheeler Field for guard duty that morning. The airplanes were lined up in three rows. When the Japanese came in, all they had to do was come straight down the line, strafe them, and bomb them. When I first saw the planes come in, I thought they were all American planes coming in until they got close enough for us to see the wings. I was only about ten feet from the front of the hangar. When the first plane came over, the first shell went through the hangar wall about a foot from my head. I think I fired four clips of ammunition. It was probably not the best way to try to knock down a plane.
"They wiped out the field in fifteen minutes. The whole field had fifteen to twenty bomb holes in it. The planes were all destroyed. The hangars were mostly destroyed. We jumped into two-and-a-half-ton trucks and headed down the beach and up to the mountains. We were very angry because the shock had worn off by that time. We were up there for about a week before they brought us down. From that point on, we were in intensive jungle training. Nobody had any idea where we were going, but we all knew we were going someplace. I hope that people remember Pearl Harbor. They will remember the whole war and not be so anxious to start another one."
After contracting malaria, he was transferred to a hospital in New Zealand.
I met John Seelie while watching Cleveland Browns football games late in the season at a tavern in Englewood in 2013. We were both from Cleveland. There is something about living in a city like Cleveland where nothing is given, nothing is easy, and everything is earned. He was dressed in Browns gear and a US Army ball cap — nothing that would indicate any part of his background. He was quiet and had his Heineken resting in a cup of ice so it would not warm as he took his time sipping it. We struck up typical small talk. I would not see or talk to him again until the beginning of the 2014 football season.
After a game on November 30, 2014, it was raining hard as the game ended. Everyone was waiting out the downpour, and we got to talking. He mentioned that he had watched Babe Ruth play ball by sneaking under the gate at League Park as a very young kid. When I found out John was a big baseball fan, I asked, "How old are you?"
He responded, "I am ninety-two." He mentioned he had to get going. He still drove, and he explained that he needed to find a ride to the airport at five o'clock in the morning on Tuesday, December 2, 2014. He said he had to make some calls.
I asked why he needed get to the airport by five o'clock.
He told me they were sending him back.
I asked, "Back to where?"
He responded, "Honolulu."
I asked, "Why would someone be sending you back to Honolulu at the age of ninety-two? And why would you have to be at the airport at five o'clock in the morning?"
He said, "They are sending me back to Pearl Harbor."
I asked, "Are you a Pearl Harbor survivor?"
He responded, "Yes."
The Greatest Generation Foundation was picking up his entire week's tab in Hawaii to remember the seventy-third anniversary of Pearl Harbor. All he had to do was get to the airport and back.
I took down his phone number, address, and the numbers of his contact people. I had one day to work on his ride. It just hit me the wrong way that any veteran — let alone a Pearl Harbor survivor — would be looking for a ride, especially for one as important and simple as a ride to the airport. The next day was December 1. I had one workday to get something — anything — done for him.
I called a limousine company and told them about John and his need for a ride to the airport.
They said, "Yes — no charge."
I reached out to a news crew and asked if they had any interest in covering him leaving for his return to Hawaii. I got another yes. I thought, What else? An honor guard to send him off would be nice. Within half an hour, three men returned my call and said they would be in his driveway in the early hours to send him off.
I decided to push a little further, and I contacted the sheriff's department and the state highway patrol. I asked for a lights-on escort of the limousine from his home to the airport. I explained the circumstance.
They nicely explained that without a formal application, which had to be supplied months before, and approval, they were not able to do anything. They took my contact information.
At one o'clock that afternoon, I got a call from the sheriff. They were making a special exception and were going to escort John's limousine to the airport. At four fifteen, I got another call from the state highway patrol. They were going to make an exception and escort his limousine to the airport.
I arranged for the limousine, news coverage, an honor guard, and a police send-off. I knew it was going to shock him. The respect for these special survivors shocked me.
That next morning, in the dark, I watched it all unfold. I stood in front of his home as the limo pulled in. The news crew started broadcasting from outside his home and then moved inside. John was wearing his Pearl Harbor survivor's cover, a Hawaiian shirt, and white dress pants.
When John brought out his huge Titanic-era suitcase, three honor guards, a sheriff, and a state trooper — in dress uniforms — all snapped to attention and saluted. This caught us both off guard, and John got a little emotional.
I watched it all with a few friends and neighbors who knew he was making the trip back to Hawaii. Some held small American flags and watched in the dark from across the street. He never knew I was there.
As the patrol car turned on its lights, John entered the limousine. The officers helped with his bag and walker, and off they went. The sheriff from Sarasota County drove to the county line, and a sheriff's patrol car from Lee County seamlessly filled in behind the limousine.
Upon arrival, John was greeted by as many applauding TSA agents and airport personnel as could be there. John spent seven days at Pearl Harbor and had a wonderful time.
I picked up John at the airport when he got back, and we kept in touch.
John was really tired and was not getting much of his energy back.
By January, he was having trouble breathing.
I asked if he wanted to get it checked.
He drove himself to the hospital and was diagnosed with pneumonia in both lungs. When I got to the hospital, I found out he had also had many bouts of malaria over the years. They gave him antibiotics, and three days later, like a miracle, his lungs were clear. He went home and started going to the gym again.
John was a gym rat. Every day, he parked diagonally in the striped fire zone by the door. Nobody said a thing. He went to the gym five or six days a week for three hours at a time. For the final fifty minutes or so, he would swim without touching the bottom. He believed that he had to stay fit to travel back to Pearl Harbor. He wanted to make it to the seventy-fifth remembrance.
We kept in touch after that, going to grab bites from time to time. I made sure he had what he needed, often stopping to pick up food or batteries for his hearing aids. He would give me a twenty-dollar bill, and I would give him his change. When I would hand him his change, it would always be for the entire amount he gave me, just broken into smaller bills. I smiled, wondering how long I could get away with this tactic.
He started to feel comfortable around me and began to open up a little. He spoke about his wife of sixty-two-and-a-half years who had passed, his family, business dealings, and then his service. He would call me and ask if I had time for this or that or a bite.
Whenever he called, he would say, "Hi, Mike. It's Seelie." He never used his first name. Whenever he called or asked about something, I made a decision to be there for the guy.
One rule was no talking or calling during Cleveland Indians games. Whenever I would call him, he had the TV blaring loudly and would never pick up. I always had to call multiple times.
We watched terrible Cleveland Browns football and shared pizzas and other bites. John started opening up about the war to me in early 2015. After a short time, I knew if he wanted to get breakfast, he needed to talk about the war. Lunch was half of it. He just wanted to get out of the house, or he talked about growing up or the war.
Dinner was always for fun and lots of dumb jokes. Dinner was at a beach restaurant called Lock and Key restaurant in Englewood Florida.
John was a girl magnet. Women would give him hugs and kisses on his cheeks and forehead. At one point, he looked at me and said, "I am doing okay, kid. You need to step up your game."
I thought, Step up my game?
I began to call his phrases "Johnisms." At breakfast, he would always order waffles with a lot of butter and coffee, and then he would talk. I asked if he felt better after telling me things that had been inside him for more than seventy years. I think it helped him, and I know it helped me
John lost his funding back to Pearl Harbor 74 on November 9, 2015. The reason given is that they could not find enough Pearl Harbor survivors to meet funding requirements. They needed six and had three. I found out this was not true in 2017. Survivors normally traveled on December 2 or 3. I did not have a lot of time. I asked if he really needed to go that year.
He said, "That's what I live for. It's the only place I can go where they remember what happened and who I am, and I am grateful. I am going — even if I have to swim there."
I got an emotional lump in my throat.
I went to work for him. I asked for and received first-class tickets in both directions from American Airlines. It took one call and a couple of emails. Thank you, American Airlines!
I asked John if he would help me by providing some interviews for papers and television.
He was all in.
I gambled when I set up an interview to highlight him losing his funding with a television station I knew was syndicated. I hoped that other stations around the country would pick up on his story.
When we saw the attractive reporter in the parking lot, I made a comment to John that she was so young we might have to walk her through the interview.
Jessica Sanchez from Wink News stepped up to the plate with her first set of questions and knocked the interview out of the park. She used a new-school technique for an old-school subject. We did an incredibly detailed television interview with her in hopes of — after a nice edit — getting donations for his travel on our GoFundMe account.
After it aired, hundreds of donations adding up to thousands of dollars poured in.
I got a call from K. P. Pezeshkan, vice president of Manhattan Building Company in Naples, and they funded everything else without condition. The total value of funding raised in nine days was more than $11,400.
By November 20, 2015, John was fully funded and booked at the Hyatt Waikiki Beach in Honolulu. I decided that it would not serve John well for me to get him there and not know the territory. He knew Honolulu like his hometown. I knew nothing.
I asked James Owen, curator of the Pearl Harbor Museum, and Jessi Higa, a Pearl Harbor event coordinator, to find me a knowledgeable local concierge. They provided me with three names, indicating that while all were top-notch, Nicola Wales-Wong was really recommended — if she was available.
I was sending my friend halfway around the world by himself. I needed to know he was going to be treated as well as possible. I asked for references from all three candidates and grilled everyone — from half a world away.
Nicola seemed to be heads above the others. I called her, and we talked, and then I asked her to send a picture of herself and a picture of her driver's license. I was pleasantly surprised, and I hired her. Her effort and professionalism were remarkable!
John spent ten days in Honolulu and had a great time.
John called me on Nicola's phone and asked if I could run "interference" from his family for him. He told me that he and Nicola had gotten married ten minutes ago. Before he hung up, I could hear them both having a good laugh at my expense!
Nicola spent extra time making certain he was okay after he fell ill from eating an egg salad sandwich. Nicola took him to the NFL Pro Bowl, which started at 6:00 a.m. in Hawaii and got him to all the activities, parades, and dinners he wanted.
Years later, I am still honored to call her my friend. We talk often, but we have never met in person. The Greatest Generation Foundation noticed her professional efforts in caring for John and was so impressed that they hired her.
John and I kept in touch throughout 2016. On Sundays, we would go out to lunch or dinner. I also set him up with video interviews and print interviews.
Since he was funded to return to the seventy-fifth anniversary by the Greatest Generation Foundation, I decided to provide John with a custom-embroidered Hawaiian shirt. The shirt would tell the story of his service, his family, and his life. I placed an ad on Craigslist: "I need an artist who can draw with a pencil — not just a computer."
The ad specifically said the project was for a Pearl Harbor survivor, and I had more than fifty responses. After several interviews in June, I met an incredibly talented young artist. She was so impressive with her sketching skills, and she wanted to do it. She provided me with pencil sketches of bugs, vertebra, and some graphics. I gave her the job.
Emily Kopke liked to be called simply Emi, and she was a freshman at the University of Miami. We worked through the summer on the various items that needed to be represented on the shirt. Emi did her homework, making certain all the artwork was as correct and historically accurate as possible. The first time she saw it, the smile on her face said it all. The shirt took everyone's breath away! Even as the machine sewed thousands of stitches, the embroidery shop took on a feeling that something big was happening.
There was special celebration honoring John on Veterans Day 2016 at Lemon Bay High School. John's daughter Denise was in town and looked thrilled that she could partake in these activities with her dad. Emi met John and gave him his shirt in a packed gym with an emotional standing ovation from 1,200 students and staff. The staff and some of the students teared up. Many were taken in by the reality of having history stand in front of them. Most students had only read about Pearl Harbor in history books as if it were a footnote. The line to meet him was impressive.
Later that day, John was honored in a wall of chalk art that depicted him looking back in time seventy-five years at a burning Pearl Harbor at the 2016 Venice Chalk Festival. John had a police escort to the festival grounds. The motorcade consisted of two police cars, a polished black SUV, complete with US Army decals and American flags above the doors, donated for the event by Bill Buck Chevrolet, a World War II Jeep and a World War II troop carrier.
The event was broadcast live on Facebook at 1:48 p.m. in Florida, which was the exact time of morning in Honolulu when the attack began. People from all over the world were watching. A couple hundred people, including the mayor, gathered to see John exit his ride and stand next to a chalk picture of the burning Arizona in Pearl Harbor. He was greeted by a four-member color guard that stood at attention the entire time. The event ended with John in the middle of the color guard and the commander calling the salute.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "From Pearl Harbor to 9/11"
by .
Copyright © 2019 Michael Cahill.
Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse.
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