Column by Ken Hamilton — I had not spent much time in Long Beach, California at all; but Swartz had, having been on board Wiltsie for much of the period that she was in the shipyard. 

I don’t know who or what it was that he had left behind that he just had to go see again; but there was definitely a reason, unbeknownst to me, why I had to be in that YMCA/USO on Christmas Eve, 1971, would roll across the Rocky Mountains and come to rest on the Pacific Shore.

Signalman Third-Class Raymond Swartz and I walked our way from the 32nd Street Naval Station to the bus terminal in downtown San Diego. The shipyard in Long Beach had recently finished its repairs on the USS Wiltsie (DD-716), and that destroyer was securely tied to its berth in one of the world’s finest cities.

It was Christmas Eve, and our 4-mile walk would take a little more than an hour for two young sailors to make.  The evening bus ride, with its occasional stops, would take another three hours before it would arrive under the brightly-lighted night sky of the city of Long Beach. Despite the adverse conditions that one had to endure while sleeping on a small man-of-war, such as was Wiltsie, we were nonetheless awakened by the jolting turns and stops that a bus makes as it navigates its way through the city streets and into the terminal.

In those days, Californians didn’t decorate like the folks back home in Niagara Falls did. It was unlike it was in the northeast, where cities decorated their streets with arrays of lights, whose multiple colors parachuted down from their high perches using the strings of silken snowflakes, and then onto the multi-level, ivory-lined, alabaster carpeted stages below. They danced both there and in the eyes and hearts of parents and children alike. I missed not seeing them. But it was exciting being on the road again, and the chatter of the other riders, who were going home for Christmas, washed across my soul like the frothy and refreshingly warm spray of the ocean.

While the Christmas lights of home were missing, as the sun began its descent into the sea, and the bus lumbered its way up Interstate-5, colorful lights did appear.  I had made the trip between San Diego and Long Beach by bus before; but it was only during the daylight hours.  With the nightfall comes a certain magic that focuses one onto things that are there in the light, but goes unnoticed.

There was a lot of emptiness between San Diego and Long Beach, which sits just south of Los Angeles. But in the sun’s fading orange light, what first impressed me were the black silhouettes of the palm trees gently swaying in the wind and seemingly serenading the evening with a silent lullaby, as silver ripples danced upon the peaks of the waves of a darkened sea. As the sun turned as red as Rudolph’s nose and below the horizon, that miles-long string of the long-awaited Christmas lights magically presented themselves to me.

There were lights of yellow and blue, red and green, and even purple ones every now and again, lining the coastal highway off Encinitas, Carlsbad and Oceanside, and delighting me to no end. After all, this was California.

Thought they really weren’t Christmas lights, the flashing and steady neon and colorful lights and signs of the hundreds of businesses that dotted the road along the highway suited me well. And though they could not replace the holiday lights of Niagara Falls’ Main Street of that day, for me, it was starting to feel a lot like Christmas. It was preparing me for what was to come.

Like an outgoing tide, the chatter of the riders soon trailed off into the sleepy silence of passing through the edge of the darkened Marine Corps base at Camp Pendleton.

We say a lot of things. We say that we are against war, but we support the troops that fight them. But, do we? Swartz and I were some of the troops that fought those wars. And we would spend the most different Christmas that I ever had inside of the YMCA-USO in Long Beach.

No one ever just becomes something. It is always after a series of events and significantly emotional decisions; and there are always many years upon years of days before anyone becomes an overnight success or failure. The happenings at that YMCA that night was the start of one of the biggest turns in my life, and it continued the process of making ‘the reason for the season’ a reality for me.

The inside of the brick building was heavily decorated in holiday attire. There were three large rooms where the events took place. If memory serves me, two of them had fireplaces that were fully ablaze. The Christmas trees seemed 10-feet tall, and different music played in each room. A live band played in one of them.

There were two groups of happy, smiling people there; those who were far from home on Christmas and those who were from nearby, but chose to leave their home to be with those who were far from home so that they could feel as if they were home. That group served both warm and cold non-alcoholic drinks; and there were women who would dance with the sailors, soldiers, Marines and airmen. There were all kinds of finger foods available. I felt like I was on the elaborate set of some movie studio that was filming a Christmas special, and I expected Lorne Green (Hoss’s father on the television series Bonanza) to traipse around the corner at any moment.

It was indeed magical. I thought that nothing could make it better. But that is when these three young men made their way through the crowd and up to me. We briefly chatted when one of them, out of the blue, asked me if I knew the Lord Jesus Christ as my personal Savior.

His question hit me as if the brick walls of that beautifully decorated room had suddenly fallen upon me. I slowly shook my head and stupidly wondered why someone would ask me that question — especially now; and then I answered it, “No.”

“Would you like to?” he asked. Again, I embarrassingly said, “No.”

He then asked if we could pray together, and I allowed that to happen. And then the three wise men, having imparted their gift into my mind and heart, melted back into the crowd.

I have not heard from Raymond Swartz since 1973. I would again be asked that same question in about 1974, when shipmate yeoman, E.Y. Baines, aboard the USS Farragut in Philadelphia, would invite me to church with him. I have not seen E. Y. since 1976.

But, at Harrison Radiator in Lockport, in 1979, a young man named Vincent Sharp asked me the same question; and in it, the third time, I saw the three wise men of Long Beach. I saw Swartz and I saw E. Y., too. I again said no, and Vincent and I began to speak together. After our conversation, and my prayer, I thereafter could say “Yes,” to that question.

Longer than the road between San Diego and Long beach; longer than the road between the west coast and the east, are my memories of that Christmas of 1971. I thank God for those people of Long Beach, who saw fit to actually support those thousands of nearby, active duty service-members who fight our wars. They made sure that their YMCA existed, and that it was in a position to have a USO there for them.

As there was a reason why Swartz chose me to take that bus ride to Long Beach with him, there is a reason for the season. I believe that you will be happier if you found it; that way, it could always be Christmas, but not always be snowing.

Merry Christmas.

Contact Ken Hamilton at kenhamilton930@aol.com.