Chapter 12 - The End
Morgan Hale retired from the Navy in 2038.
She had served for thirty-one years. She had been a diver for twenty-seven of them. She had been assigned to the Naval Sea Systems Command's salvage detachment at Naval Base San Diego for twenty-three. She had been the senior enlisted leader of the detachment for the last eight. She had been awarded the Navy Distinguished Service Medal, the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal, the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal, and — in 2035 — the Legion of Merit for her work in the recovery of the USS Anzio and the identification of the remains of her crew.
She lives now in San Diego. She lives in a small house in Ocean Beach with a garden and a dog and a view of the harbor. She volunteers at the USS Midway Museum on Saturdays. She reads to school groups on Wednesdays. She teaches a class at the Naval Diving and Salvage Training Center in Panama City, Florida, every spring.
She does not tell the students about her father. She does not tell them about the nameplate or the wreck or the trial. She does not tell them about Commander Peter Vale. She does not tell them about the captain whose name is classified. She does not tell them about the sixteen years of lies.
She tells them about the diver's job.
"The diver's job," she says, "is to see what is there. Not what you want to see. Not what you have been told is there. Not what the tasking order says is there. What is there. And when you see what is there, you write it down. You write it down in your log. You write it down in the recovery inventory. You write it down in your notebook. You write it down on your own arm if you have to. And then you turn it in. You turn it in to the officer in charge. You turn it in to the salvage officer. You turn it in to the Navy. And if the Navy does not want to hear what you have seen, you turn it in anyway. You turn it in to the NCIS. You turn it in to the inspector general. You turn it in to the press. You turn it in to anybody who will listen. Because that is the diver's job. That is the entire job. And if you do not do the entire job, you are not a diver. You are a bystander in a wet suit."
The students look at her.
They do not fully understand.
They will understand when they are diving on a wreck in the middle of the Pacific at two in the morning with a light in their hand and a nameplate in their bag and an officer in their ear telling them to keep diving.
They will understand then.
And when they understand, they will remember the woman at the Naval Diving and Salvage Training Center who told them about the diver's job.
They will remember that she said the diver's job is to see what is there.
They will remember that she said the diver's job is to write it down.
They will remember that she said the diver's job is to turn it in.
And they will do the job.
Because that is what a diver does.
That is what a diver has always done.
That is what a diver will always do.
—
There is a display case in the lobby of the Naval Diving and Salvage Training Center in Panama City, Florida.
It holds a small brass nameplate. It is corroded green with salt and time. It has two initials on it — T.H. — and a number — 04. It was recovered from the wreck of the USS Anzio by a master chief petty officer named Morgan Hale. It was the nameplate of her father, Chief Boatswain's Mate Thomas Hale. It was the reason the USS Anzio was raised. It was the reason her father's remains were returned to her family. It was the reason her father was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
The display case is next to the entrance of the diving school. Every diver in the Navy who trains at the school walks past it. Some of them stop and read the plaque. Some of them do not. Some of them read the plaque and never think about it again. Some of them read the plaque and think about it for the rest of their lives.
The plaque says:
"This nameplate was recovered from the wreck of the USS Anzio by Master Chief Petty Officer Morgan Hale, who did not know, when she recovered it, that the wreck she was diving on was the wreck of her father's ship. The plate belonged to her father, Chief Boatswain's Mate Thomas Hale, who went back down a ladder twice to save the men in his charge and who did not come back up. Master Chief Petty Officer Hale did not stop diving when she found the plate. She did not stop asking questions. She did not stop telling the truth. She turned the plate in. She testified in a court-martial. She watched the man who had lied about her father's death be convicted of manslaughter. She watched the Navy raise her father's ship. She watched the Navy return her father's remains to her family. She watched her father be buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
This nameplate is here to remind every diver who walks past it that the diver's job is to see what is there. Not what you want to see. Not what you have been told is there. What is there. And when you see what is there, you write it down. And when you have written it down, you turn it in.
Because that is the diver's job.
That is the entire job.
That is all it has ever been.
— Master Chief Petty Officer Morgan Hale, USN (Ret.)"
The display case is still there.
It will always be there.
And every diver who walks past it will remember what it says.
Every diver who walks past it will see a small brass nameplate.
Every diver who walks past it will think about a chief boatswain's mate who went back down a ladder twice.
Every diver who walks past it will think about his daughter, who did not stop diving.
Every diver who walks past it will think about the truth.
And the truth will be told.
And the truth will be enough.
That is the whole story.
That is the entire story.
That is all it has ever been.
—
Morgan Hale sat on the porch of her small house in Ocean Beach on a Tuesday evening in the spring of 2043.
She was fifty-nine years old. She had been retired from the Navy for five years. She had a garden and a dog and a view of the harbor. She had a photograph of her father on the mantel and a photograph of her mother next to it and a Navy Cross in a shadow box in the living room and a folded American flag in a wooden case on the shelf.
She had a cup of coffee in her hand.
She had a letter on the table beside her.
The letter had come in the mail that morning. It was from a young woman named Emma Brennan. She was nineteen years old. She was the daughter of Thomas Brennan, who was the son of Kevin Brennan, who was the seaman who had been pulled out of his rack by a chief boatswain's mate on the night of October 14, 2003.
The letter said:
"Chief Hale — my name is Emma Brennan. My grandfather is Kevin Brennan. My father is Thomas Brennan. My great-grandfather, whose name I carry as my middle name, is Thomas Hale. I am writing to tell you that I have enlisted in the Navy. I am going to be a diver. I am going to be assigned to the Naval Diving and Salvage Training Center at Panama City, Florida. I have read the plaque. I have read the story. I have read everything my grandfather has told me about the night of October 14, 2003. And I want you to know that I am going to be the kind of diver that you told me to be. I am going to see what is there. I am going to write it down. I am going to turn it in. Because that is the diver's job. That is the entire job. That is what you taught me. And I am going to teach it to every diver I train. — Emma Hale Brennan, Seaman Recruit, United States Navy."
Morgan read the letter four times.
Then she folded it.
She put it in a shoebox in her closet where she kept the plaque from the display case and the letter from the Secretary of the Navy and the Navy Cross citation and the photograph of her father from 2003.
She sat back down on the porch.
She looked out at the harbor.
The sun was going down over Point Loma. The water was gray and calm and the sky was orange and pink and the boats were coming in for the night. Somewhere out there, eighteen miles offshore, was the wreck of the USS Anzio. It was no longer there — it had been raised and towed away and cut up for scrap in 2030 — but she still thought about it. She still thought about the berthing compartment. She still thought about the ladder. She still thought about her father. She still thought about the moment when she had pulled his nameplate out of her dive bag on the wet steel deck of the salvage dock.
She thought about it every day.
She would think about it for the rest of her life.
She was okay with that.
She had found her father.
She had brought him home.
She had told the truth.
She had trained the next generation of divers.
She had honored the man who had gone back down the ladder twice.
She had done what a daughter should do.
She had done what a chief should do.
She had done what a diver should do.
She had done the job.
The entire job.
That was enough.
That was more than enough.
That was everything.
She picked up her coffee.
She drank it.
She looked at the harbor.
May you like
She smiled.
And she went on living.
