This Narrow Span: Poems and Other Works

My parents, Daniel A & Margaret A (Killeen, an Irish immigrant) had already produced five offspring who were to become my 3 older brothers and 2 sisters when I came along in 1920. The birth of my brother Bill completed our family. Father was a Labor Leader, heavily involved in the 1920's Labor activities and union organizing in Pittsburgh, PA. My mother's softening Irish attitude made our home a pretty happy-although hectic-home in our single bathroom gas-lit accommodations. All this changed in October, 1929 with the crash of the Stock Market. Dad was hit heavily by the bank closings and home life became strained both financially and emotionally. Pittsburgh became for me the most desirable place to get away from. This was followed by the extreme dislike of school that continued thru the 9th grade, and gave me the opportunity to go to a Trade School in 1935, where I felt I was learning something useful. I quit Connelly Trade School and joined the U.S. Navy in September, 1937. My choice of Navy was due to the law that allowed me to join at age 17 with parental consent, which my father was happy to provide. A waiting time was required, but that time was drastically shortened by the Japanese surprise attack on the U.S.S. PANAY, a gunboat operating in Chinese waters as part of the United States Asiatic Fleet. This precursor to coming events not only provided me with the call to duty as a Navy Seaman Recruit to undergo training at the newly opened Naval Training Center, Newport Rhode Island, on January 30th, 1938, but was also a preview to my own assignment in that same Fleet in the not too distant future. With the completion of three months training, 14 of us newly minted "Boots" were bussed to the old Brooklyn Navy Yard to board the U.S.S. SIRIUS to be transferred to ships on the West Coast via the Panama Canal and begin a journey as U.S. Navy Sailors that, for me, would encompass 22 years and two major wars; WWII and the Korean Conflict.