I remember feeling that I could never that happy again when, after three and a half years in the service, two and a half of that overseas, I was finally on my way home. We embarked from Yokohama two months after the peace treaty had been signed and were headed for California. After all that time, there was only a few weeks until I would be discharged from the service from Ft. Logan where I had started so long ago.
The morning of the last day at sea found all of us at the rails looking at what seemed to be clouds on the horizon. The short (actually the longest) hours finally passed to where we could make out landmarks. After lunch, which hardly any of us attended, we could see that there was a large welcoming group on shore waving and screaming to us as we made our way towards the Golden Gate Bridge. We all screamed and waved our hellos until just before we started under the bridge. A complete silence broke out over the entire ship as we watched the bridge pass over us. When the ship completely passed under, pandemonium broke out from us that was twice as loud as anything we had done before. It was as though all of us could not realize until that instant that were really home again.
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