Nathan Cook, age 103, poses for the camera at the VA Nursing Home in Phoenix, Arizona.
“He Answered Duty’s Call”
On Sunday, I met a man who worked as an in-air refueler during the Vietnam War. He tearfully told me of an experience he had encountering an old instructor and family friend limping home in an F-4 Phantom over the skies over Hanoi. With the instructor’s shrapnel-riddled fighter-bomber hemmorhaging fuel, this veteran’s KC-135 crew kept it topped off with enough gas to get it home, saving his friend from the prospect of a risky ejection over the jungle.
I love talking to veterans. I’m endlessly fascinated by the diversity of their lived experiences. That’s part of what drove me to study military history. I don’t care if the stories are banal and boring or emotional and exciting. There’s so much we can learn about human nature simply by listening to the veterans we meet.
This week I stumbled across the story of another soldier, one I would have loved to meet were he still around. He was a gregarious old sailor by the name of Nathan E. Cook, who by 1989 and at age 103 counted himself as the last surviving American veteran of the Philippine-American War (1899-1902). His is one of thousands of stories that can be perused free of charge on the Library of Congress website.
Cook’s storied military career was almost Forrest Gumpian in its historic dimensionality. There’s a document in his LOC collection that tells the story far better than I could. Penned by a gentleman by the name of Thomas A. Walrond, this handy poem depicts Cook’s life in lyrical form:
Verse 1
Gather ’round ye lads and lasses
Come and listen to my tales;
’Bout fighting ships and sailors
That braved the ocean gales.Of perilous adventures
At every turn you took;
Wherever there was danger
There, you’d sure find Nathan Cook.Verse 2
Young Nathan joined the Navy
In the year of 19-1;
The poster read “Come See the World”
And he thought it would be fun.From cabin boy to lieutenant
He rose up thru the ranks
For the daring rescues he performed
Many men have given thanks.Verse 3
While some men serve for 20 years
Cook served for 44
He fought in every scrap we’ve had
Since the Spanish-American War.Thru two World Wars and then some
It’s enough to write a book
Of storm-tossed seas and courageous men
Like the Navy’s Nathan Cook.Chorus
“North East” Cook they called him
for his initials are N.E.;
And they always had him chart the course
When they headed out to sea.From Port-au-Prince to China
Nathan Cook saw ’em all;
From the isles of Greece to Panama
He answered duty’s call.
Enlisting in the Navy at age 15 only three years after the start of the Spanish-American War, Cook’s storied military career saw him circumnavigate the globe four times. He made stops in a dizzying array of climes and conflicts:
- Occupation duty at the tail-end of the Spanish-American War, 1901
- The Philippine insurrection, early 1901
- Participation in the suppression of the Boxer Rebellion in China, 1901
- Near-death experience aboard the USS Kansas in 1907-081
- Participation in Pancho Villa Mexican border skirmish of 1916-17
- Commander of a subchaser in the Medterranean, sinking two German submarines, 1917-18
- Commander of a sub-tender in Brest, France, where he helped rescue a torpedoed crew, 1918-end of WWI
- Commended for role in salvaging the USS Narragansett by the Secretary of the Navy, 1919
- Executive officer of transport vessel SS Mormacyork when World War II broke out
- Retired April 1, 1942 after 40-year naval career; during the war he had commanded a sea-going tug based out of Port-au-Prince, Haiti as well as a sub-tender and mine sweeper in Panama
- Promoted to permanent rank of lietenant, ending his career in charge of a shore patrol detachment
According to an article, “Injuries forced [Cook’s] retirement on Armistice Day, November 11, 1945–not battle injuries, but injuries from being run over by a truck on a pier.” That’s a pretty nonchalent way of putting it.
“I don’t feel old…I feel young,” said Cook in 1989, then climbing well past the centenarian threshold. “I’m good for another 10 years.”
He passed away three years later, aged 107. Arizona’s Department of Veteran Affairs put out a nice tribute to Cook’s life. He seemed like a real character.
“While leaving the port of Gibraltar, I picked up the hauser (a heavy mooring line), hauled it in, and pop, my appendix burst. They didn’t know that in the sick bay. The captain notified my wife that they would try to bring my body home for burial.” Packed on ice, Cook awoke–much to everybody’s shock. “When surgery was finally performed in Philadelphia, it was discovered his appendix had ruptured and dried up.” Source.↩︎