(2 of 6)
For the past two months he has replayed the series of events surrounding the collision a thousand times in his mind. His sub had gone down to 400 ft. and shot back again in a rapid-surfacing maneuver known as an "emergency blow"--directly underneath the Ehime Maru. As it broke the surface, the Greeneville's HY 80 steel rudder, specially reinforced to punch through ice, ripped open the stern of the Japanese ship. "When I put up the periscope after the collision and increased magnification, I saw all those little people tumbling in the water. I felt disbelief, regret, remorse, anxiety, rage, denial...This was something I had no control over. I couldn't change what happened. As a man who exercised control over my ship, suddenly it didn't matter what I did--I couldn't change the outcome.
"I didn't cause the accident. I gave the orders that resulted in the accident. And I take full responsibility. I would give my life if it meant one of those nine lives lost could be brought back." He doesn't sleep much at night, and when he does, he is plagued with nightmares. His hair has turned gray, he has bags under his eyes, and he has lost weight. Every waking moment is a struggle to keep himself together. During a series of interviews with TIME last week, Waddle broke down several times, showing a depth of grief that was wrenching in its rawness. "I am not tired of apologizing," he said, tears streaming down his face as he sat in his rocking chair at home. "But I am tired of crying. It kills me that nine people died because of an accident."
The sinking of the Ehime Maru resonated around the world. It was the first major foreign policy challenge for the newly installed Bush Administration. In Japan it contributed to the fall from power of Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, who shocked public opinion by continuing a golf game even after he heard of the accident. The Pentagon fretted about damage to the already fragile military alliance with Japan. The Japanese families of the nine dead were left in shock and grief. But at the center of the affair has been the tragic figure of Scott Waddle, a complex character who exudes self-confidence but craves approval, a man who was trained to fight a war that could end the world, but whose own world ended when he hit a Japanese fishing boat on a leisure cruise.
As Waddle has searched for a meaning for what happened, he keeps coming back to the story of Job in the Old Testament. "Job is the closest corollary to what has just happened in my life," he says. "Satan challenged God: 'You have a servant named Job--let me put him to the test.'" The testing was severe--Job lost his family, his belongings and his health, until he cursed the day he was born. But throughout, he maintained his faith in God. Waddle too has lost much: his career and his shipmates. His savings have been eaten up by legal fees. "My test has been, 'Am I willing to compromise my integrity?'" says Waddle. "I cannot tell you how easy it would have been for me to say it wasn't my fault--that the guys who worked for me made the mistakes. But I couldn't in good faith do that."