Admiral Scott visits the wounded

The admiral himself visited a hospital ship and paid tribute in the sickbay. "Not once during the entire visit was I answered with a grumble or a bellyache or a whine, but invariably with a grin or at least with an attempt at one," Scott wrote to his wife, Marjorie, at their home in Washington. "Sometimes the answer would be low, and I would lean well over to make the conversation easier going. It might take a few seconds, and then I would hear, 'I'm doing pretty well, thank you, sir.' One like that, and your heart goes right out to him. It is the custom in the Navy to remove one's cap in the sick bay. Mine will always be off to those men."

[Rear Admiral Norman Scott, as quoted in Neptune's Inferno, by James D. Hornfischer. Scott won the Medal of Honor.]