Born in the same year

     Both of us were born in the same year ...
       Both after four years,
                 [in the action of war we premiere,
       she had the ability to sail and to fight.
       I could walk and I could fear the night.

Soon she gained such fame
that the whole world
                   [knew her name.
She was the protagonist of the Pacific
and the younger
         [regard her as something mythic...

She was the hostess when
       [an empire signed submission,
while I was still a child in transition.

In the sixth year we first met.
I approached her,
   [with a boat, an idea to get.

The glorious and famous battleship,
stopped for a few days of her trip
and came into the port of Piraeus*                *port of Athens
                                 to visit and refuel.      

Βoats surrounded the Pacific winner,
                        [the winner of that duel...

The captain did not allow visitors to board
Very few boarded,
                    [I was small and was ignored.



   We met a second time...
                                    [with mediator Tommy Lee Jones,
     in the film "Under Siege", with well-known actors,
                                                       [and some unknowns...

   The years went by, they went fast...

     I became a sailor,

      [both our lives at sea was passed.

    One thousand nine hundred and ninety-eight.

    Both tired and aged... we had a common fate ...

    Both in the same year, we retired from the action.

    Coincidence....?  madness....?  imagination...? 

                                                                  [attraction....?

 

* Extract from "The Broken Mooring Line", an experiential
poetic work // page c40 // e-mail: pmataragas@yahoo.com //
Texts and Narration: Odysseus Heavilayias - ROTTERDAM //
Language adjustments and text adaptation: Kellene G Safis - CHICAGO//
Digital adaptation and text editing: Cathy Rapakoulia Mataraga - PIRAEUS//
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Missouri was ordered in 1940 and commissioned in June 1944. 
In the Pacific Theater of World War II she fought in the battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa and shelled the Japanese home islands, and she fought in the Korean War from 1950 to 1953. 
She was decommissioned in 1955 into the United States Navy reserve fleets (the "Mothball Fleet"), but reactivated and modernized in 1984 as part of the 600-ship Navy plan, and provided fire support during Operation Desert Storm in January/February 1991.
Missouri received a total of 11 battle stars for service in World War II, Korea, and the Persian Gulf, and was finally decommissioned on 31 March 1992, but remained on the Naval Vessel Register until her name was struck in January 1995. In 1998, she was donated to the USS Missouri Memorial Association and became a museum ship at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.


 isos..