The LST

The LST

She stood bent over at the door of the long hallway, holding her Daddy’s hand as tight as she could. She was 4, and just barely aware that a big War was going on, and her town was part of it. Not in the fighting, no, but in the training. The Navy men in their dark blue uniforms and white sailor hats were everywhere downtown. No one could drive to the beach to swim anymore because that’s where the Navy was. They had buildings and boats and a hospital and a photo lab building, and lots of other things. They had painted the bottoms of all the palm trees white, she didn’t know why.

But here she was on one of the Navy boats. The Navy had decided to give the people in her town a little treat, right here in the middle of the War, maybe as part payment for taking over their harbor for the Navy. So her Daddy had brought her down to the docks where the LST was tied up, and they had crossed over the bridge to the boat, a bridge that shook when you walked on it. And her Daddy said there would be cookies at the end of the tour.

Part of the tour, the part just before the cookies, was a special long room, a hallway really, that the Navy men had decorated to look like a jungle in the Pacific, where the LST had been. The room was totally dark, except for some green lights that shone up into the palm trees that lined each wall, and some yellow lights that shone on the men, dummies really, that were propped up against some of the palm trees, holding their guns in their laps, but pointed toward the path of sand that ran down the middle of the room. She could see, far on the other end of the path, a doorway with bright light behind it. That’s where the cookies were, her Daddy said.

“Come on, honey, it’s OK, “ her father said.

“I’m scared, “ she whispered.

“It’s not real, honey, it’s just pretend.”

“I don’t like it. I don’t want to go.”

“We have to go, honey, that’s the only way out.”

“I’m not going.”

“I tell you what. I’ll go and show you there’s nothing to be afraid of. You can follow me.”

She watched him walk the 20 or 30 feet down the sand path, looking back over his shoulder a couple of times. She hid behind the edge of the door and just peeked at his back moving away from her.

Her Daddy stood in the doorway now at the other end of the jungle. “Come on, “ he called. “Run to Daddy.”

Suddenly she shot forward through the jungle, sobbing, never looking left or right at the soldiers and the palm trees, running as fast as she could toward her Daddy’s shape silhouetted in the doorway.

Her Daddy swooped her up in his arms and she, embarrassed for the other visitors to see her cry, buried her face in his neck.

“I’m sorry, honey. I didn’t know you were so scared. Daddy should have carried you through. But I thought you were a big enough girl to go by yourself.”


Years later she remembered this event, not all the details maybe, but certainly the fear, the embarrassment, the clinging to the safety of her father. Today’s War wasn’t nearly as scary, seen only through the TV. You don’t have to walk by yourself through the jungle at night with soldiers pointing their guns at you. Much easier now.