HARRISBURG, Pa. — Bombs often exploded a half-mile away from Tech. Sgt. Christopher Swisher's tent at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan.

Retired Army Command Sgt. Maj. Samuel Rhodes keeps pictures of the dead in his pockets. They're the faces of young soldiers whose eyes stare out resolutely from photocopied pages worn and creased by the ritual of unfolding them, smoothing them flat and refolding them.

For Arlene White of Temecula, Calif., walking the deck of the historic U.S.S. Missouri was "a dream come true." White and her husband, Auston, were among the hundreds of residents and visitors on hand for yesterday's public reopening of the 66-year-old battleship after its three-month, $18 million stay in drydock for maintenance and restoration.