USS Slater

We took the Boy and his buddy to visit the USS Slater today.

It's the last World War II Destroyer Escort still afloat in America, built to defend the convoys of ships bringing supplies across the Atlantic to Britain, and the naval fleet in the Pacific.  For no specific reason, it resides in Albany, docked on the shore of the Hudson River.

We joined a rather large party for a tour of the ship, squeezing along passageways and up and down ladders.  We examined the guns and missiles up on deck and the quarters below deck and tried to imagine life at sea in wartime.  It was easy to picture the crew all noisy and joking around down in the mess or trying to get to sleep in their bunks; harder - moored on a river on a sunny day - but not impossible to conjure up the pitching waves out on the ocean, or the fearful intensity of an air or submarine attack.

It's always worthwhile, especially for us (lucky enough never to have experienced it) to visit reminders of war and to think about the sacrifices made.