Today Captain Carroll “Lex” LeFon’s life was celebrated and honored on the sacred grounds of old Fort Rosecrans in Point Loma, California.  The events transcended what is a typical mortal ceremony to honor our fallen; today’s ceremony was a deeply powerful afternoon reflective of such a deeply fine man.  And Lex was cut from the sort of life-fabric most of us have only read about in our favorite works of adventure-fiction…he was a man full of passion, gusto, emotion, courage, intellect and love and he lived a life complete.  He was a devout father, warrior, naval aviator, countryman, and writer.  The tragedy of his passing is not made any easier by these truths.  And yet there was, today, a certain majesty of the landscape, a certain power of the moment and crispness of the air and righteousness of ceremony that made that sadness not more powerful in despair but more more powerful in redemption: that this man lived as he did.  I was in tears from the moment I had my place on the grass among the hundreds that came today to pay their respects.  And so was everyone else there to honor this giant of a man.

As I drove away I thought this: how lucky we were to have had a man such as this in this world, brief though his time on station was.  And I thought of a short poem often read to me when I was a child that I had thought was long forgotten but wasn’t and said to myself out-loud as I descended from Point Loma’s hills…

CHARTLESS.

I never saw a moor,

I never saw the sea;

Yet know I how the heather looks,

And what a wave must be.

I never spoke with God,

Nor visited in Heaven;

Yet certain am I of the spot

As if the chart were given.

-E.D.

Rest easy now Lex.  We have the watch.

« Farewell, Neptunus Lex.

Aviation, Diversity, and Uncomfortable Truths »

Posted by Alexander Martin in Navy
Tags: Alexander Martin
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• Cap.n Bill

  AMEN. Well Said. Thank You

• Byron

  Thank you, Alex, it was well said. Good bye and God bless, Lex.

• grizzledcoastie

  Great words about a great man. BZ