Remembering the 'Okie'

Sixty-six years ago, Paul Goodyear had to run to save his own life.

A Petty Officer Third Class assigned to the USS Oklahoma, Goodyear had enlisted in the Signal Corps, believing that, after four months worth of training, he would return to a civilian life.

“When the training ended, they wanted me to sign a request for a year’s sea duty,” he said.

Shortly thereafter, Goodyear found himself stationed at the Pearl Harbor Naval Base in Hawaii.

And on this particular Sunday — Dec. 7, 1941 — the job was easy.

At Pearl Harbor, Sundays usually were.

Sure, the miliary brass was concerned: In 1937 China and Japan had locked horns and two years later, Hitler had invaded Poland. But so far, the United States had stayed neutral.

And even though then-President Franklin Roosevelt had signed the Lend-Lease act in March of 1941, American soldiers had seen little conflict.

But the country was on high alert.

“We knew before long we were gonna get involved in that deal in Europe,” Goodyear said. “It was gonna happen.”

Still, if he was going to serve, then being stationed at the Pearl Harbor Naval Base “was paradise.”

“We were certainly enjoying Honolulu,” he said.



Day of infamy

Sunday morning started slow.

“I began (that) Sunday morning with only the activities of a secretary,” he said. “We were there, just kind of walking around the signal bridge trying to look and locate what ships were in.”

With several battleships safely in port, Goodyear and his colleagues spent most of their time looking at a beautiful blue Hawaiian sky and relaying messages back and forth between officers.

“In port, all of our responsibilities were to make sure Ensign So-and-so made his connection with Lt. So-and-so for a tennis game,” he said. “That was our main obligation on the morning of Dec. 7.”

Just before 8 a.m. all hell would break loose.

From his perch atop the Oklahoma’s signal bridge, Goodyear began to watch a small, single engine airplane about a mile-and-a-half away.

“That first one dropped a bomb, but that didn’t set off any alarms,” he said.

Since the Oklahoma was anchored next to a naval station, many small U.S. planes came and went. And for those planes practicing their bombing runs, the island was the perfect spot to drop that remaining practice bomb which wasn’t used.

“If they went off and, for some reason, didn’t expend their practice bombs, then rather than land with the bomb strapped to the fuselage of those little planes, they just dropped them on the little island,” he said. “Then the practice bombs were recycled.”

The scene, Goodyear said, seemed perfectly normal.“We just thought it was our guys.”

Paul Goodyear was wrong. It wasn’t a practice run. And the small planes weren’t American.

“When the third plane dropped its bomb, we saw the wheels, they were retractable,” he said. “Then we saw the mushroom cloud.”

At that point, Goodyear said something that he, later, wished he’d copyrighted.

“I said, ‘it’s the goddamn Japs.”

By the time he’d completed that expression, Goodyear watched the first of several Japanese torpedos speed through the water.

“The first torpedo was headed right at us. I said, ‘hang on, here comes the fish.’”

Those fish killed the USS Oklahoma.

“About eight or nine of ‘em hit us,” he said. “The torpedos obliterated about 250 feet of the port side of the ship; water came pouring in there.”

The damage was extensive, he said, because the Oklahoma had been preparing for an admiral inspection and all of its watertight compartments were open.

“We weren’t a watertight ship. We were an eggshell.”

About 11 minutes later, the once proud USS Oklahoma would roll on her belly, going from straight up to 151 degrees down.

“Many of our men were trapped inside,” he said. “Most of them were running to get to their battle stations.”

About one third of them never made it.

Of the Oklahoma’s 1,200 member crew, 429 died.

“The Oklahoma sailors were trapped in pitch black,” Goodyear said.

“You can’t imagine how pitch black it was. And at some point in time, realization sets in — there ain’t no way out.”



Looking back

For Goodyear, the trauma was almost unthinkable.

“Can you imagine the fear you’d have if you were in that position, and you know that every breath you took, every breath that every occupant of that compartment took just shortened your own life?”

Before the morning was over, more than 4,000 soldiers would die.

On the USS Arizona, 1,177 were killed mercifully, Goodyear said. “They had no pain, no trauma. They were just vaporized.”

The attack would devastate the Navy. Of the ships in Pearl Harbor, five were destroyed — the USS Arizona, the USS Oklahoma, USS Utah, the USS Cassin and the USS Downs; 13 other ships were damaged.

Yet, somehow, Goodyear survived.

“When the Oklahoma started to roll we just decided that discretion was the better part of valor and ran down the ladder to the deck below,” Goodyear said.

After returning back to the signal bridge to grab a secret signal code book, Goodyear, still riding the Oklahoma as it rolled, dropped into the sea and swam toward the USS Maryland.

“When I got there, they threw me a weighted rope,” he said. “I reached up with my right arm and grabbed it on my wrist.”

As he was being pulled out of the water, bullets flew overhead.

“I looked up and saw white spots appearing inches above my head. I realized that was not what I wanted up there and immediately dropped back into the water.”

Eventually Goodyear would make it onto the Maryland and, he said, return all the marine fuel he’d swallowed.

But the fight would continue.

The United States would quickly enter the war.

And the world would change, again, for Paul Goodyear.

Today

At 89, Paul Goodyear is spry, engaging and easy to talk with.

His knowledge of his place in history is deep and he enjoys answering questions.

Speaking recently at the Cleveland County Republicans’ noon luncheon, Goodyear talked reverently about those soldiers who died on his ship, the “Okie.”

“Those soldiers, all 429, made the ultimate sacrifice,” he said. “And I believe, because of the way they died, their sacrifice was great. That’s why we’re going to dedicate a monument out there. That’s what we’re trying to do now.”

This year, Goodyear has traveled across the country to raise money and support for a memorial to the USS Oklahoma and the 429 men who died there.

“This memorial isn’t about us. This is about our 429 shipmates,” he told the Oklahoma State Senate in November 2006.

“The boys on the Arizona died instantly — they never even knew what was happening, but on the Oklahoma, they had a horrific death, drowning in dark compartments before they could be rescued,” Goodyear said. “It isn’t right that they had to go that way, and it isn’t right that we’ve had to deal with so much red-tape and federal bureaucracy just to get this far — but I’m grateful we’re finally on the verge of getting this memorial completed while some of us are still alive to see it.”



Going back

Two years after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Paul Goodyear went back. He returned to the Oklahoma — now salvaged and in dry dock — because he wanted to retrieve some personal items.

“I wanted to go over there and get my girlfriend’s wedding ring and the $130 I’d left on the ship.”

Stepping around the crew working on the former battleship, Goodyear borrowed a flashlight and went below deck.

“It was as pitch black as I’ve ever seen,” he said. “I put my right foot into the compartment and I had the light in my left hand.”

Then, as he moved his other foot, Paul Goodyear stopped.

“That was as far as I could go,” he said.

The deck was covered with bones.

“There were two divisions in that room. I have no idea how many men were trapped in that compartment. Their bones were just piled up there, just commingled together.”

Paul Goodyear never retrieved his ring or money.

But he has worked to return the remains of many a lost USS Oklahoma sailor to their families.

“Just last month the Army finally returned the 39th man, a man from Indiana, to his family,” he said. “He was returned without any use of DNA or dental records. He was returned solely based on the information on his death certificate. We have 27 more Okie sailors in exactly the same condition.”

Sailors that Paul Goodyear has spent a lifetime remembering

Efforts continue for USS Oklahoma memorial

Today, fewer than 100 of them remain.

Of the more than 800 men who survived the Japanese attack on the USS Oklahoma in 1941, only about 100 survive.

And they haven’t forgotten their comrades.

And they don’t want you to forget them, either.

“They had a horrific death,” said Paul Goodyear, an 89-year-old survivor of the attack. “Drowning in dark compartments before they could be rescued. It isn’t right that they had to go that way, and it isn’t right that we’ve had to deal with so much red-tape and federal bureaucracy just to get this far.”

What Goodyear wants is simple: A memorial dedicated to the USS Oklahoma and its crew.

“This memorial isn’t about us” he said. “This is about our 429 shipmates.”

With the help of Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry and first lady Kim Henry, funds are being raised to erect a memorial to the ship and its crew.

The Oklahoma Centennial Commission has joined the effort and the group homes to raise about $750,000 more for the memorial and its maintenance.

Plans call for the memorial to be located at Ford Island Pearl Harbor, near the mooring location known as Fox Five — where the Oklahoma was berthed.

A dedication is being planned for Dec. 7 — 66 years after the attack.

“I’m grateful we’re finally on the verge of getting this memorial completed,” Goodyear said, “while some of us are still alive to see it.”

Persons wanting to contribute to the memorial may send donations to:

USS Oklahoma Memorial

PO Box 7734
Edmond, OK 73083
For more information about the memorial, visit www.ussoklahoma.com or call 348.3737.

Sheriff, Moore PD question jail site location

A proposal to locate a new county jail in Lexington is drawing questions from two area law enforcement officials: Cleveland County Sheriff DeWayne Beggs and Moore Police Department spokesman Todd Strickland.

Both Beggs and Strickland said they had “serious concerns” about a new jail facility being located in Lexington.

“I would like to have it (the jail) as close to the courthouse as I can get it,” Beggs said Tuesday.

The issue, he said, is safety.

“When inmates are removed from the security of a jail facility, you’re raising the risk of something happening,” he said. “It’s dangerous to the ones transporting them. It’s dangerous if somebody wants to hand an inmate something in a hallway, or if an inmate wants to try and escape.”

Strickland agreed, saying the increased travel time between Lexington and Moore would keep Moore officers away from other duties. “If you had to go to Lexington, it would take close to an hour and a half and would keep officers off the streets and unable to respond here,” he said.

In late July, Cleveland County Commission chairman George Skinner met with several representatives from the state Department of Corrections to discuss the possibility of locating a jail at Lexington.

The site — a 240-acre plot of land near the Lexington Assessment and Reception Center — is popular, some officials say, because the land could be leased from the state for as little as $1 per year.

In addition, a jail in Lexington would be located next to other correctional facilities in the area, and allow the Department of Corrections to lease “close to 100 beds a day” in the new facility.

That lease could amount to more than $3,200 per day for county officials.

However, for Beggs and Strickland, financial issues take a back seat to concerns about safety and the transportation of prisoners.

“It would create a lot more problems for us here in Moore,” Strickland said. “We’d have to really research it. It would be a lot more work.”

Work that Beggs worries could be unsafe.

“I would rather have the jail close to the courthouse,” he said. “It becomes a nightmare the further you get away. ”

And while Beggs will acknowledge that technology can solve some problems through the use of video arraignments, “you’ll still need to bring the inmates to the courthouse for a trial,” he said. “And then after the trial you have to transport them back.”

With pressure building on county officials to chose a jail site, commissioners have been scrambling to find a location that is both close to the courthouse and appeals to merchants and homeowners.

Earlier this year, Skinner confirmed commissioners were considering several sites for a new jail facility — including an expansion of the current downtown jail, the Lexington site, and a 30-acre plot of land along Franklin Road.

The Franklin Road site — near the Moore Norman Technology Center — drew the ire of several area residents and spawned two different legislative attempts to derail the project.

Despite those complaints, county officials voted 2-1 this spring to purchase the land for $1.2 million and finalized the purchase a few months ago.

Since then the land — still owned by the county — has remained undeveloped.

In late July, Skinner confirmed the commission was considering a site in Lexington. “Lexington’s a possibility,” he said. “But I don’t know all the details about the land. I really don’t want to talk about it (the jail’s location) until we’ve picked a site.”

To make that decision, Skinner said the three-member commission, Beggs and other county officials would attend a conference in Denver, Colo., sponsored by the Federal Bureau of Prisons next week.

Once they have returned from that conference, he said, they will have a “pretty good idea” where the jail should be located.

“Basically, the conference will give them information on how to run a jail,” Beggs said. “It will give them a better idea of what we’re dealing with. I hope we’ll know something then, but then the decision isn’t in my hands.”

COMMENTARY: It's time to change child custody laws in Oklahoma

One of the fundamental tenants of our government is that all men — that is, people — are created equal.

Each has the same claim in the eyes of justice; we all start at the same spot and each person is entitled to a fair hearing and a redress of grievances.

That’s the way life in the USA is supposed to work; granted it doesn’t happen all the time.

But that’s the goal.

Except here in Oklahoma.

Here in the Sooner State in cases of divorce and child custody, there is no equality.

Here there is no balance.

Here, men get the shaft.

While you’ll hear denial after denial, the fact remains that Oklahoma’s child custody laws — and a majority of the judges who enforce them and the attorneys who abuse them — are slanted toward the mother.

Decades ago the concept was known as the “Tender Years” doctrine. And while some will try to convince you this doctrine is a thing of the past, don’t believe them. It’s alive and well.

Men, fathers, don’t get a fair hearing in child custody and divorce cases.

And it’s time for a change.

Because divorce is often such an acrimonious issue, the courts — and those who profess to be attorneys — should do everything possible to remove the emotion from the issue.

Instead of trying to decide what’s best for the child; children are used as pawns and often, access to children is a weapon used by an angry mom against a struggling father.

I say we even things up. I say we change our laws like this:

• Unless there is documentation of abuse, neglect or violence, both parents should go into a custody hearing with the presumption of joint physical custody. This means the child should have equal time (yes, 50/50) between each parent.

That should be the presumption from day one, unless there is factual evidence of abuse against one parent.

• In cases where both parents are presumed to be qualified and caring, child support from one ex-parent to another should be eliminated.

Now, before you start sending me hate mail, hear me out: Instead of paying child support to an ex-spouse (where you don’t know if it will, in fact, ever be used for the child) both parents — under such a joint custody arrangement — should pay into a state-overseen trust for the benefit of the child.

Seriously, good parents are going to feed, cloth and nurture their children. They will buy school supplies and take them to the doctor when needed. And there’s no reason for one parent to be forced to pay another when both are caring for the children.

Requiring child support — instead of access to the child — is stupid and the cause of extended tension, trauma and repeat visits to the judicial system.

Instead, by paying into a trust, the child would have financial resources say, for college, or the purchase of a home, when the child reaches legal age.

• Eliminate the moronic notation of “visitation.”

For several years now, Oklahoma has funded a marriage initiative designed to keep families together and make them stronger. One of the components of this initiative is getting more fathers actively involved in their children’s lives.

And this is a good thing.

Study after study has show that when a child has a farther involved in their upbringing, that child will do better in school, is at less risk for abuse and neglect, and is far more likely to grow up normal and well adjusted.

But not in Oklahoma.

Here, when parents divorce, it’s usually the father who is stuck with “visitation and paying child support.”

If you ask most fathers — those who are involved in their children’s lives — they will tell you they want to spent time with their kids.

And you can’t raise a child on visitation.

Often, ex-spouses, angry for some other perceived issue, use the child as a tool to “get back” at their ex. It happens all the time and, in the end, it’s not the spouses that suffer — it’s the children.

State lawmakers, judges, and members of the legal profession should hang their heads in shame over the way they have legislated, interpreted and abused Oklahoma fathers and their children.

• Move divorce and custody issues out of district court to a special Family Court.

It’s worked for Drug Court, it would work for divorce cases. Instead of elected judges, the family court should be composed of a three-member panel of specially-trained judges who, from the beginning, put the child’s interest first and who work to make sure that both parents are actively engaged in that child’s life.

Until Oklahoma takes steps to help put displaced fathers back into their children’s lives our divorce, poverty and crime rates will continue to climb.

A dad is a necessary — and vital — part of the family equation.

And it’s time for state leaders to recognize that fact.

Coburn tours pregnancy center

Surrounded by more than 100 members of Norman’s anti-abortion movement, U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn said Oklahomans must “change hearts” regarding the country’s abortion policy though compassion and love.

Coburn, speaking at the opening of Care Net’s new Robinson Street location, said the facility represents “people caring about people.”

“This is really about caring about people,” he said. “It’s not about judgment, no matter what decision they make. It’s about offering care for people who think that, ‘I’m in the pit and I don’t know how to get out.’”

Coburn, a Muskogee physician, spoke Tuesday.

“Nobody wins on an abortion,” he said. “Regardless of the choice they made. The important thing is to help women.”

Speaking to the media prior to the center’s opening, Coburn said his real intent for being in Norman was “because this is for women, no matter what they choose.”

“The important thing is to help women,” he said. “You’re helping them when they are in a time of need; here are the options, we’re gonna help you emotionally, physically and spiritually.”

The center, which has been in Norman since 1996, recently signed a five-year lease for office space at the Robinson Medical Plaza. The office was constructed with funds from a $92,000 grant from the Butterfield Memorial Foundation.

Care Net officials said the new location is “expected to triple” their capacity to serve woman and provide them with a large classroom center for parenting classes, pregnancy and wellness programs, and volunteer training.

Care Net’s interim executive director, Crystal Drwenski, said the facility also is launching additional services and will unveil a new brand name and marketing campaign by the end of the year.

“Having a pregnancy resource center that can provide such needed services as ultrasound screening and STD testing is one of the most effective ways for the right-to-life movement to help women through compassionate truth and professional care,” she said.

Coburn agreed.

“There are not many women who have seen their baby who then go on to abort,” he said, adding that many of the state’s unplanned pregnancies are the “consequences for early sexual behavior.”

“You’re seeing the tail end of moral judgements that we, as a society have made,” he said. “When we said we don’t have any problem with multiple partners.”

The problem is so big that “45 percent of the women in this state are carrying the human Papillomavirus,” he said. “Which is the virus that causes cancer, how’d they get that? They got that through multiple sexual partners; maybe not that, but their partners.”

The whole idea behind the center, he said, is regardless of the choices that are made, we’re gonna care for ya’, we’re gonna nurture you and we’re gonna help ya’ through it — no matter what decision they make.”