"PT 109"

One of the cool things about subscribing to “satellite TV” is that it gives you a veritable smorgasbord of audio/visual fare from which to choose. Every once in a while I also enjoy having the opportunity to revisit an old, classic movie that I haven’t seen in a long time.

It had been ages since I saw the movie “PT 109” -- based upon the best-selling book of the true story of John F. Kennedy’s heroic naval service as a PT boat commander during WWII -- starring Cliff Robertson as JFK.

It reminded me of things about Kennedy that I knew but had forgotten. . .

There are many young people who have never heard the story of how, one night while on patrol, the PT boat under Kennedy’s command as a young naval officer was cut in half by a Japanese destroyer and of how Kennedy led his men on a three mile swim to the shore of the nearest island while towing a wounded shipmate by a strap wrapped around his chin. That encounter with the Japanese destroyer was to leave Kennedy with a severe injury to his back that was to plague him for the remainder of his all-too short life.

I have even heard it might have been that same injury that ultimately cost him his life because the brace that he constantly wore held him upright after the first assassin’s bullet struck -- making the second shot a fatal one but, even if that isn’t so, the constant, daily pain he suffered because of it must have affected him and, in some ways, changed him and the way he related to the world forever after.

When the movie “PT 109” ended, I was struck by the thought of how much our world and the perceptions we have have changed since the last time I watched it.

One aspect, in particular, made me stop and think. . .

After the 109 is sunk, Kennedy and his PT-boat crew are stranded on a tiny island that is constantly patrolled by enemy boats. After a couple of unsuccessful attempts by both Kennedy and another officer to flag down a friendly vessel by floating around in the ocean all night long, Kennedy decides to lead his men (several wounded among them) on a long-distance swim to the next island to take their chances there. . .

There is no fresh water supply on either island and all the men can find to eat are a few coconuts, so, the situation is becoming desperate when two native tribesmen arrive and agree to take a coconut with a plea for help carved into it to the nearest “friendly” -- a solitary radio “spotter” on a neighboring island.

Unbelievably, not only do the native men deliver the message to the spotter (who then radios the Allied base camp that Kennedy and his men are alive), they return with a couple more men in a larger canoe, hide Kennedy beneath a blanket and deliver him safely to the spotter. Kennedy then returns with Allied rescue boat and rescues his men from hiding.

Several times, the natives with the concealed Kennedy aboard encounter Japanese planes and ships. When they do, they smile and wave, making the Japanese believe that they are simply native fisherman going about their business, and the Japanese completely overlook them.

The end result, of course, is that they are able to deliver Kennedy safely back into the bosom of the Allied Forces who rescue all of Kennedy’s men stranded on the island and Kennedy is eventually awarded a Congressional Medal of Honor for his heroism.

Every word of this story is true and did actually happen but -- as I sat there watching the movie -- I couldn’t help but wonder: If a similar situation arose today, would Kennedy or any of his men survive?

I wonder because, at that one critical juncture, all of their lives were completely dependent upon the good will of a canoe-load of natives who lived on a remote island in the middle of a vast sea that was under the control of an enemy (not unlike the Taliban) that would have liked nothing better than to see every, last U.S. soldier, sailor, marine and aircraft pilot lying dead -- an enemy that was known (also like the Taliban) to possess little mercy when crossed. . .

So, I ask myself: Why did the natives paddling that canoe help Kennedy and his men at such great risk to themselves? At any moment while transporting Kennedy to the spotter’s island their deception could have been discovered by the Japanese. They would have paid for it with their lives and they knew it.

Why were the rescues of Kennedy and his men so important to these isolated, primitive people who really had no stake in the outcome of the war that was being waged around them?

They could have simply viewed Americans as major contributors to the wholesale killing and destruction that had engulfed what had once been their peaceful and idyllic home. . . Their decision of whether to support the Japanese invaders or the American invaders could have amounted to a political coin-toss but, for them, it was obviously not a matter they decided by the toss of a coin.

Plainly, they looked with far greater favor upon the Allied Forces but, until I watched “PT 109” again, I really hadn’t given much thought as to why these people (and the people of other small, “non-involved” countries all over the globe during that era) supported (especially) the United States at such profound risks to themselves and their families. . .

These were people who would not have had the acumen to research complicated political ideologies in order to decide upon the one most simpatico to their world view. They would not have had access to daily newspapers or radio programs from New York or Tokyo debating the U.S. and Japan’s systems of government -- their virtues and pitfalls. . .

No, the differences between the Allies and the Axis had to have been easily identifiable on very, real, practical and concrete levels. It is likely that “little things” would have counted with these people: A GI tossing a candy bar to a child in a war-ravaged village, the assistance of a military doctor for a difficult birth, a soldier’s reluctance to inflict harm on women or children, a small gesture of respect toward a local culture, religion or custom. . .

These are the things by which primitive loyalty is won -- not complicated rhetoric, not the pluses or minuses of grandious political doctrines. . .

Since they are in no position to remove “invaders” by force, what matters to primitive peoples in remote, reluctant -- and, yet, inextricably engaged -- countries is the nature of the treatment that they have reason to expect at the hands of their invaders.

And I wonder: In some far-off pocket of humanity in some isolated corner of the world we live in today, can we have any reasonable expectation that the morals, ethics and actions of the United States are still of such a superior quality as to be obvious to any given canoe-load of natives?

Sadly -- very sadly -- I doubt it. . .

“30”