After 10 years, focus turns to living

BY TONY GERMANOTTA, The Virginian-Pilot
Copyright 1999, Landmark Communications Inc.

This article was posted in at www.pilotonline.com on April 20th, 1999.

NORFOLK -- A few young men picked their way over the riprap, each clutching a flower.

The television cameras were long gone. The bell had rung 47 times. Sailors had finished combing the grass for the brass cartridges dropped during the 21-gun salute.

But for this handful of men, the 10th anniversary memorial service of the disaster that had claimed 47 lives aboard the battleship Iowa was not yet finished.

They went to the edge of the Bay, at a location the Naval Station dedicated as Iowa Point for the fifthanniversary. And these men, from undamaged Turret 1, each solemnly tossed his flower out to sea.

The first decade after the disaster focused on the dead.

Families fought their grief, then the Navy, which had tried to pin blame for the explosion on Gunners Mate 2nd Class Clayton M. Hartwig of Cleveland.

Lost in all the angst and anger was the heroism and emotional suffering of the sailors who survived the blast, those who came to remember on Monday said.

Evelyn Hartwig, whose son Clay was finally cleared of causing the blast, said she had found closure.

``I've had the best weekend I've had in 10 years,'' she told the crowd. ``The closeness and the healing and the love we've had.''

This despite having her clothes stolen out of a van, including her special Iowa memorial jackets, while the family ate at a restaurant in Spotsylvania County, Va., on their way here from Cleveland.

It was meeting the former crewmen that helped, she said.

``Would you believe,'' she told the families, ``I've adopted five sons off the Iowa. If there's any more that want me as their mom, the Iowa crew that survived, I'd be willing to adopt you. . . . I want to personally thank every one of those kids that went in there and did the best they could to try to save our kids.''

Evelyn even embraced Ken Truitt and his former wife, Carole Keown.

``Ken Truitt is here, and I'm elated,'' she said. ``Ken is special to me, and so is Carole. All of us have gone through a bunch of hell together.''

Ken Truitt was Clay's closest friend on the ship. When Hartwig died, Truitt was the beneficiary of an insurance policy Hartwig had taken out.

That policy kicked off a Naval criminal investigation that eventually concludedClay was angry at Truitt over a cooling of their relationship, crafted a detonator and set off the blast.

This weekend, Iowa crewmembers mingled with the bereaved families, and both learned how much the other had suffered.

``These boys are hurting as bad as we are,'' Evelyn Hartwig said.

``The healing in my life is starting. I can feel it. I want it to continue.''

In his keynote speech, Retired Navy Capt. Larry Seaquist, a former Iowa commanding officer, also focused on the men who had survived the blast.

The Navy, he said, had failed these men -- much as, he claimed, it had failed those who died in the accident.

Seaquist said two recently published books had focused on what went wrong with the explosion. He said it was equally important to examine what went right.

``Some of the men died out of pure Navy heroism,'' Seaquist said.

He told of ``remarkable heros'' down in the bottom of the turret, in the powder flats, who had a brief chance to run but chose instead to fight the fire.

The sailors ``stood in a disciplined line exactly the way they trained at firefighter school on this base,'' he said, ``and died of smoke inhalation trying to put out that fire.''

He said it was shameful their sacrifice was never acknowledged.

``Their families, they needed to have a medal,'' he said. ``They needed to hear the story from the former crew.''

There were other heroes, too, he said, men who entered the smoldering turret after the explosion to secure the ship and to retrieve the bodies of their ``beloved shipmates'' after the turret had been flooded.

``To be in shoulder-deep water trying to sort through and look for pieces of people . . . that was an extraordinary experience,'' Seaquist said. ``We never paused to put our arms around the shoulders of those men and appreciate their contributions to their ship and their shipmates.''

Instead of awards, he said, they received criticism from the brass.

He then talked personally about the 47 who died, about their hopes, dreams and love of the Navy. Unlike most deaths, Seaquist said, ``We never got around to celebrating'' the men's lives.

``All of these men met all of the tests that they were given,'' he said. ``And we can be very proud of them and proud of the families and proud of what the Navy is doing for all of us and our country.''

Evelyn Hartwig also called for closure, saying she had once lost confidence and respect in the Navy because of the way her son was treated.

``I pray today that we'll have the best Navy in the world again,'' she said. ``Make sure those kids are safe. We sacrificed ours, and we don't want it to be for no reason at all.''