(Posted on 02-03-2001)
Everyone stationed in auxiliary control,
and every sailor on board the Montgomery , stood to attention
as Lyda Cottrell spoke the names of the dead. Twenty-five names:
she read them all over the shipwide comm system, from the most
junior casualty--young Jamie McGraff of Northstar, torpedoman--to
Commander Jena Tyne and Captain Rafael DeCosta. Without the underlying
murmur of the ship's engines, Cottrell thought that she could
hear her voice echoing through every deck. Only two people in
auxiliary control shed tears, and even those were shed in silence.
The air was filled not with sadness so much as a deep solemnity,
a truly specific gravity that overcomes people--especially the
young--when they realize what loss is like.