Friday, November 13, 2020
To Mark’s family and friends,
Mark was my friend. We were classmates at Department Head school, we were shipmates as fellow department heads in USS Reid, and we kept in touch for awhile afterward. But it was pre-email and well before social media and soon our physical paths diverged. Over the years I’ve tried to search for Mark via the internet, but my searches came up blank. The last time I saw him (I think it was in 1987 or early 1988, when he was on USS Cimmaron), we met in Hawaii the day before he was to go on deployment. We had drinks in a quiet, dark bar. Mark told me of his experience in saving USS Stark, after she was hit by an Iraqi missile during the tanker war. It’s a long story, and in typical Mark Pahl fashion, he told it compactly, elegantly, and comprehensively. There were no prurient details, but he did not skimp on the horrors he saw. His genius in his very first act, when arriving onboard Stark, that of requesting a chaplain to get the bodies tagged and bagged instead of continuing to be strewn about, was sobering and inspiring.
But before I offer more reminiscence about my friend, my shipmate, I must say: I was absolutely shocked to find he had passed two months ago. When I saw him in Hawaii, he told me of a terminal illness he had, and that he did not expect to be around for more than a few years. That in itself threw me for a loop, given our young ages. Every few years I would do a search online for Mark, and never found anything. Today, it was as if God ordained my fingers to type “obituary mark pahl” in the Google search bar. And the Glenville Mortuary page on him came back.
Mark and I were not friends throughout most of department head school – he was in the “other” section…there were two sections to my class, and we generally kept close counsel with those in our section, because we were in class with each other eight hours a day and then a few hours of studying each night. Once, however, we received our assignments (roughly three quarters of the way through the 16-week program), and we saw that there were TWO Lieutenants assigned to USS Reid, we introduced ourselves and became fast friends.
Mark taught me a lot about the Navy, the small ship Navy. I had come from being an engineer on an oil-burning carrier, and had no experience with small ships. On the other hand, he was not only knowledgeable, he was so incredibly smart and competent – both in theory and practice (as I’d come to learn), I found myself probing his memory and skills as much as possible. I don’t think I ever fully realized just how much of a genius he was.
He was not, however, some elite academician who lived in a bubble. Not that I ever thought he was, but the first time he said “let’s go drink beer at the Mainbrace all afternoon” it was confirmed. The Mainbrace was a mini-officers’ club on Pier Two in San Diego. We’d been on Reid for a few months, enough to know our jobs. I had gone through a horrible divorce, and was just coming out of the pain. But still, I was building up workaholic points. Mark’s exhortation that we go to the Mainbrace and spend a pleasant afternoon on the water was anathema to me – but it was typical of Mark. He made hard work look easy, and so he made leisure seem like something we all had to do. Not because we were lazy, but because we needed time to reflect, recharge, and connect with people on terms other than work.
I said to Mark “but what if one of our troopers needs to get ahold of us?” His answer was simple: “Just tell your Chiefs where you will be, but if the Captain needs us, tell the Chiefs to say you’re doing a maintenance spot check.” That defined Mark: be ruthlessly honest, but leave room to get yourself out of trouble if the honesty could be used against you! We spent many – and I do mean many – afternoons in the Mainbrace…our men would bring us maintenance forms to sign, request chits to review, operational documents, whatever. A young sailor would stand there in awe of these two Lieutenants in uniform acting like they were serving in World War II patrol boats instead of a Cold War frigate.
I have probably many more stories about Mark than just about any other officer with whom I have served – he was memorable, loyal, and supremely generous. That last time I saw him in that bar in Hawaii, he said “how long are you in port here?” Mind you, he was deploying in the morning. “A few days, I said.” It was my very first time in Hawaii. Mark said, “here, take the keys to my jeep…have fun.” He told me to just park it somewhere on the base and write to him telling him where it would be. That was Mark being Mark – leaving me an open top Jeep with a Quiet Riot tape in the tape deck and taking off to refuel the fleet.
One final thought: Mark was absolutely comfortable in his skin. One time in the wardroom, someone mentioned how the Captain had gone nuts over something. “Oh, I’ve seen that Yosemite Sam version of the old man,” Mark said. Except he pronounced the rootin-tootin cartoon character’s name as “Yohm-uh-sight Sam.” As the group of us there spewed laughter at his error (“how long have you been mispronouncing that, Chief Engineer?” one junior officer yowled), none laughed harder than Mark.
My sadness that I missed talked with him all these years knows no bounds. I was profoundly distressed that he has gone to be with the Lord, but I know that I will see him again, and that crooked grin of his will greet me upon arrival. May your sadness be tempered by the fact that you knew him well, and that his life meant so much. I will miss him immensely, and even more so that I know he passed two short months ago.
Al Elkins, Fredericksburg VA
