First Light

(Reducing the leaves and field debris of fall. Photo courtesy Farmette Report.)

 

I woke thinking of the soil before first light. The tomatoes and sweet basil that came from the garden next door were on my mind, and I am resolved to plant my own the next growing season down here in rustic peaceful Culpeper. I was researching tractors and thinking about zucchini after I had cleared the email queue that got lost in the moveable feast last night.

 

That was a dinner that that started in the Russian garden at the farm next door once their imposing pile of field debris had been either mulched or rendered to glowing ash.

 

The smell of burning brought back the autumns of a long time ago, when we burned our leaves. They still do in the country.

 

As the light came up the trucks and trailers began to rumble down Cedar Grove Road toward Summerduck Run Farm. I assume something is happening down there, or at the major event complex further on toward the Zachery Taylor Highway.

 

I will have to investigate that further, and if there is some opportunity to see the women mount their steeds and go eventing. Maybe I can do that after a jaunt into town to sample some egg casserole and a mug of Dead Man’s Reach coffee at the Raven Nest coffee house in the historic district of Culpeper.

 

The birds took flight to get their insect breakfast outside as the sun’s first rays turned the dew to silver.

 

Before I could gather my keys and head out to the Panzer, I read a pal’s analysis of the shoddy response to the attack on the consulate in Benghazi.

 

Most of the irascible old farts who used to be in the business knew what it was from the beginning, literally from “first heard” on the attack. It was too organized and too comprehensive to have been an impromptu affair, we thought. Moreover, it was on the anniversary of the most visible and damaging acts of war against America. This is not rocket science. There is much noise in the news of the day, but if there were ever dots to be connected, these were easy.

 

It was apparent to the most casual observers, including CNN, that the attack in Benghazi was coordinated and timed with precision. I wrote as much that morning when we first heard, not to contradict the painfully inept US Ambassador to the United Nations Ms Rice too hard.

 


(Director of National Intelligence James Clapper (AFP Photo by Chip Somodevilla)

 

Poor Director of National Intelligence Clapper. I have worked for him and respect him enormously. He is a decent man and a hard working one. He is a long-serving servant of the people of the nation he loves, in and out of uniform. His testimony on the nature of the intelligence failure absolved anyone else of responsibility for not preventing the deaths of four brave Americans.

 

There is some controversy about who is either responsible or not responsible for the failure to prevent or respond to the clear an unambiguous threat, but a large portion of it is the misperception of what it is that the Director of National Intelligence does for a living.

 

A little history might help. When Jim Clapper took over DIA he made a hard and perfectly rational choice about what he would do with him time in the office. He confronted a classic choice: he could either direct the Agency or personally attempt to be the Intelligence Officer to the Joint Staff, the living front man for the thousands of analysts supporting him.

 

You can either manage the analysts, or you can be the most senior of them. There is far too much to do to accomplish both.

 

We have seen that model work both ways. As DCI, many of the men at Langley left the management of the Community to the DDCI, and management of the CIA to the ExDir and DExDir, while they attended to the Main Customer, the President and the NSC.

 

Mike McConnell made himself the face of the IC to the President as DNI. Others who have served in that strange bloated office where not qualified to do so, and did not try so hard.

 

That is why manager Clapper’s mea culpa rings so false. He hasn’t ever claimed to be the voice of the Community, just the guy responsible for it. I seem to recall that this is not the first time the DNI appeared out of the loop- but of course he was, and the Other Government Agency’s custodians in the persons of Mike Hayden and Leon Panetta were just fine with that.

 

I do not think it is vanity speaking in that a crew of Naval Intelligence folks- old school- would be more correct and timely than anything in this strange new community structure, reinforced with overhead and turf. We were pretty good at caring about the truth, and if there was a sword to be fallen on, it was done in the moment, after consultation with people who could understand the truth when it was painfully self-evident and not captive to a greater good.

 

We had only one “good.” Which was actionable intelligence to locate and destroy the enemy, if directed. That would have been a comforting first step after the murder of a pretty damn good Ambassador.

 

I was gratified that the citizens of Benghazi later went after the al Qaida-affiliated militias responsible for the murders. It was an act of rational self-defense.

 

I just wish it had been the United States of America that took care of evening the score for our lost diplomats and contract patriots. And do it later that day, or early the next.

 

At first light.

 

Copyright 2012 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

 

 

 

Willow and Weck


(Jon-no-H and Bud. Photo Socotra.)

 

Let’s see: I have vowed not to write about politics, the implications of climate change, the brutality of the meat industry and the internal conflict about its products, the conduct of the rogue national security state in the 1960s and anything that may subject my gentle readers to the perils and discomfort of TMI.

 

Under no circumstances talk about anyone’s Prophet.

 

That about wipes out the waterfront.

 

So, I think I will just get organized and go to the farm to see what has piled up in the mailbox on the little country road. I made a humble breakfast of yoghurt and nuts to compensate for the Willow on Friday night. In so doing, I had to tiptoe around the reports of demonstrations in Spain and Greece and keep my eyes off the continuing crisis in the Euro Zone.

 

I managed it, though, and did laundry to produce fresh sheets, which with an open window in the crisp night air made all mundane concerns float away. The wonders of a crisp fresh duvet and eiderdown and 1200-thread count hotel-style sheets cannot be underestimated. Ah!

 

The richness of the rest made it easy to pay no attention to the implications of the arrival of a grand Solar Minimum, though it may make me keep the window closed earlier than usual this winter.

 

This morning, I successfully ignored the bubble in Student Loans, which just was revised way up, and now resembles the sub-prime bubble in 2007.

 

I managed to defer judgment on the dissembling of the diplomats on the coordinated al-Qaida affiliate attack on the anniversary of 9/11.

 

Ah. I feel much better.

 

It is a lovely Fall day in Virginia, cool and crisp sweater weather. It is a perfect day to take in a football game, or do some grilling out in a parking lot as the colors arrive in the deciduous trees. Or just look at the birches going brilliant beyond the fences of the pastures.


(Tracy O’Grady and Beef-on-Weck. We managed to cover the epidemic of Type II diabetes, women’s reproductive rights and the impact of the economy on small business without a single answer in between her duties as Executive Chef. Photo Socotra.)

 

Tracey O’Grady rolled out the Buffalo Tribute menu for the last Friday of the month, and the Beef-on-Kummelweck sandwiches and Buffalo Wing and Artichoke dip was superb, and there never was a better-dressed basket of pommes frites.

 


(Baker and co-owner Kate Jansen with pommes frites. Photo Socotra).

 

The road to hell is paved with grand intentions, and I intend to take the Panzer on the road, and go South with the very best of them. Life is good, so long as it lasts.

 


(Life is good. Jamie, Short Hair Mike’s better influence and Vic at the Amen Corner. Photo by The Lovely Bea).

 

Copyright 2012 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

 

 

 

In-Person Absentee

(The official Arlington County “I voted” decal. Photo Martin Kalfatovic).

 

Frabjous Day, Caloo, Calay!

 

I promised I would get to Big Smoke this morning, and the adventures of the rogue Spooks, but I have heard that he is in rocky health, and there is no point in roiling those waters that go back to WV/WAVE, the code name for what once was the largest field activity of the Other Government Agency in Miami. He got quite cross with me when I started poking around some of the more interesting aspects of the Lucky Luciano connection between his exile in Naples and the French Connection to New York, so maybe I will just let that alone and let the dead past bury its dead.

 

There are plenty of things going on these days that make all that seem quaint, anyway.

 

I scanned the electronic pages of The NY Times, looking for other topics of interest. Amid the gloomy economic news, I saw an article on dirty campaigns of the past, apparently in the interest of convincing me that the Jefferson and Jackson campaigns were much worse than this sordid mess.

 

I do not recall those, and thought there had been a lot of water over the dam since. But ever the apologists for whatever is gong on today, the Times stands foursquare that things could be worse.

 

I am not sure how. I have talked to two brokers in the last ten days about what to do in the current fiscal environment, and where the smartest place to park resources might be. The money-guy in Traverse City opined that his Plan C was to head north of the Mackinaw Bridge to the Upper Peninsula. The guy from Morgan Stanley yesterday did not have an approach to deal with the impact of a failed Euro  cascading over a Japan that has to default on debt, with eventually everything coming here, like it or not.

 

The old joke about investing in canned goods and ammo rings sort of hollow these days. I mean, what is the alternate currency going to be? I heard last year that Tide Laundry Detergent was a commodity of choice, but that seems an awkward thing to have to carry around in the trunk of the car, not that there will be gas.

 

I was scanning the pages of Money magazine in an idle moment. That rag is a legacy subscription that belonged to Big Mama that continues to come to my mailbox. In an article entitled “What to do with $1,000” they recommended buying a portable electrical generator.

 

That was interesting, I thought. Plus, for that to be useful, it would also require investing in an underground storage tank for petroleum, which would be problematic in the condo, and very expensive at the Farm. Then I lost interest.

 

I sighed. We are all in a strange land these days. I have been walking on eggshells, avoiding television and commercial radio to keep the steady drumbeat of political bile as far away as possible. I even rigged some improvised blinders for my glasses that cover the more irritating political ads that keep popping up on the margins of my email queue.

 

Irritating.

 

Anyway, after five days of talk radio in the Panzer coming and going from Michigan, it all welled up and I finally had it. I did a Google search on Virginia voting rules, and was pleasantly surprised to discover that early voting had begun on the 23rd. I smiled for the first time in days. I went down to 2100 Clarendon Boulevard to exercise my franchise. I took the Metro, and it was quite convenient. As I walked gingerly into the County Building at the Courthouse stop, I noticed there was actually an Arlington County Gift Shop.

 

(The In-Person Absentee Polling Station for Arlington County).

 

Who on earth would have guessed that our Blue County was selling embroidered polo shirts at subsidized rates? Democracy is great.

 

Further down the hall past the stern lady at the information desk was the appropriate office. There were a total of eleven people working the absentee in-person voting station. Think about that term for a moment. I did and only got more confused.

 

They all fixated on me as I produced my voter registration card and offered photo ID. They didn’t want that. I also asked if my concealed-carry pistol permit would be acceptable identification, and they allowed as how it would, without even a blink.

 

I was the only voter present at the time, and the Polling Officer and Voting Assistant were most solicitous.

 

“Don’t forget to press the blinking red screen that says ‘Vote,'” said the VA earnestly. “It is the most important part.”

 

“I will be sure to,” I said brightly.

 

I worked through the four screens of candidates and issues. I had done my homework on the issues on the ballot. I had a grand time voting against all the idiots, and felt a great weight lift from my shoulders.

 

I despise one of the school board members, but there were only two candidates for two openings. I voted against the incumbent and wrote in “Donald Duck,” who I think has been a marvelous advocate for speech impediments and could help Arlington keep moving forward.

 

I remembered to press the blinking red screen with the word VOTE in the middle and was done with campaign 2012. I no longer have to listen to gaffes, slander, lies, bullshit or wonder what the October Surprise is going to be.

 

Then I went back to the gift shop to look at the shirts. I got a subsidized t-shirt and a nice polo with the stylized pillars of Robert E. Lee’s Arlington House on the left breast. I am proud of where I live, and the lady at the check-out counter was cute and upbeat. We agreed that we loved living in the County.

 

I walked out of the building whistling. The rest of you can listen to the gaffes and the lies and the bile and the venom for the next six weeks. I have done my civic duty, and now am going to pay as little attention as possible to the election.

 

If we all just voted today, would they shut up?

 

Copyright 2012 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

 

 

 

 

The Boys are Back

(Thomas Polgar (far right) takes command of the CIA station in Saigon, January 1972. At left is former Station Chief Ted Shackley, heading back to a new assignment in Washington. In the middle is General Creighton Abrams, head of the Military Assistance Command Vietnam).

The re-entry thing after the trip has been a challenge. I almost fell walking out of a gas station in Toledo and think I pushed things a little too hard and too soon.

I couldn’t deal with the contents of the storage warehouse, so I called my brother yesterday and suggested one last mutual trip Up North to deal with the stuff. The manifest indicated there were appliances and stuff that have to be dozens of years old, or new from the reconstruction, and I do not have the strength yet to horse them around. He agreed in principle, and we need to find an extended weekend before the snow flies.

I did not get to the morning story yesterday- and it increasingly looks like I won’t get to it this morning. I was working on extended treatment of my discussion with my 93-year-old drinking buddy Mac. He feels he needs oxygen now, so his mobility has been restricted, mostly to his one-bedroom condo and the dining room on the second floor of The Madison, the assisted living facility near my office. I stopped by to check on him Tuesday, and we had the usual wild romp through the Nation’s Spook attic that started with Eddie Wilson.

He was a rogue from the old days of CIA and Naval Intelligence, and his specialty was the establishment of front companies to cover clandestine operations. He died earlier this month, and Mac recalled meeting him on time at the NIS Headquarters in Rosslyn.

(Eddie Wilson)

In the day, Eddie was pretty famous, and after leaving CIA, he wormed himself into the Naval Intelligence HUMINT organization called “Task Force 157.” In February 1976, then-RADM Bobby Ray Inman was the new Director of Naval Intelligence. He discovered what Eddie had been up to, which included  dubious undercover business deals. A few months later Wilson was asked to leave ONI, and Admiral Inman pulled the plug on TF 157.

That is where our pal Big Smoke was working, which was part of the long conversation. Wilson continued to run the companies he had established while at Langley and for the Navy. The largest of these was Consultants International, and over the next few years he amassed a fortune of over $20 million. This enabled him to buy a 2,338-acre farm in Northern Virginia, where he often entertained his close friends Ted “The Blonde Ghost” Shackley and Tom Clines, who were still active CIA officials.


(Thomas G. Clines, Ted Shackely’s Deputy for operations in Laos).

Eddie was becoming a liability, though,  and was a classic example of a man who knew too much.

Eddie managed to spring himself from the slammer after 22 years on some FOIA documents that indicated that he had been framed by his former employers. Not that he was innocent- he just wasn’t guilty of what they convicted him for. And the guys he worked with, who transitioned from Government Spooks to retired contractors and made an awful lot of money doing some things for some very unpleasant people.

I aspire to that myself- retirement, that is- and I had a glass of wine from Mac’s refrigerator and we talked about all sorts of stuff. Consequently, I have an extended story about him and Langley in the ’70s and early ’80s when Edwin Wilson and the Blonde Ghost and some other of the rogue Agency operatives were still walking around free.

Looking through the archives about them, I suspect had more to do with the high-profile killings of the 1960s, and who later were identified in doing all manner of things in their retirements from the government. Arms, murder, smuggling-all that sort of stuff.

Mac has some ideas about that. We were at Willow once when he was still driving and getting out and he leaned over to me at the bar and confided in a low voice “LBJ did it.”

I said, “Duh.” And he looked surprised that such a dark supposition he had held so long was part and parcel of the lens through which many of us view the 1960s. LBJ unquestionably had the motive and the opportunity, but he needed someone to pull the trigger. Looking through the life of Eddie Wilson made me realize that he was the scapegoat for a grab-bag of military and Cuban and CIA Spooks who decided to make him the fall guy for their various enterprises, which may have included High Treason.

I don’t have any particular insight into that, and no new theories. They all sound crazy, but of course, it was the 1960s and things were crazy. It was Eddie Wilson’s passing that brought it all back.

I told Mac the story I heard in one meeting in a safe-house years ago, and connected some dots that may (or may not) be related. There was so much to account for.

The Agency specialized in the establishment of front companies and enterprises like Air America in SE Asia. It also had its tendrils deep into the Cuban emigre community. In the 1990s the refugee flotillas that Fidel permitted to leave A team from Langley was dispatched to Miami, since they needed a sympathetic media outlet to carry the semi-subliminal messages necessary to set the stage for public support for something that was going to happen clandestinely.

The Spooks met with the station manager of a Hispanic-oriented radio station, and got around the to the delicate matter of inserting the messages and stories that Langley deemed necessary. The men from Washington were very serious. They were quite surprised when the station manager rocked back in his chair in laughter.

“I wondered when you guys would be back. Don’t you know you own this place?”

Eddie Wilson was one of the originals, along with Richard Secord and the Blonde Ghost and the assorted Cubans. Eddie’s passing this month may indicate the passing of the generation national security outlaws who made the Cold War what it was.

I will get to that tomorrow, with another tale of the time Mac and me and the scary Spooks actually intersected- me just starting out, he about to start this third career as a caregiver, and The Boys getting into some serious legal problems.

The Boys are back this morning. Not really, of course, but their ghosts are.

Copyright 2012 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

Rogues


(Edwin Wilson in retirement. Photo courtesy the Wilson family.)

I got a note from Mac that there were some stories to be told this morning. I will stop by his place this afternoon to hear more, and in preparation I looked up the obit for Edwin Wilson, and did a version of it for the magazine I edit before work. It starts out like this:

“10 September 2012 Edwin Paul Wilson, 84, in Seattle, WA, of complications from heart-valve replacement.”

I don’t know if you remember Ed. He was a towering presence in the business, back in the day, and he paid for his prominence. A trip through his life is a journey through the looking-glass world that Mac tried to clean up in his second intelligence career at the Community Management Staff in the wake of the Pike and Church Congressional committee investigations of an out-of-control clandestine government.

Travel along with me this morning and see if you recall some of the context of the times. It includes secret wars in Laos and SE Asia, rogue Green Berets in Libya and all sorts of connections to groups like the Contras in Central America.

Ed Wilson was born May 3, 1928, in rural Nampa, Idaho. He worked as a merchant seaman before attending the University of Portland, where he received a bachelor’s degree in psychology in 1953. He was an outsized presence from the beginning of his career. As a strapping 6’4” Marine, he fought in the waning days of the Korean Conflict and was recruited by the six-year-old Central Intelligence Agency, joining the clandestine service the day after his discharge in 1955. Early assignments for the Agency included duty in Western Europe reporting on labor unrest.

He worked officially for the CIA from 1955 until 1971, and then ostensibly for the Office of Naval Intelligence until 1976.

Wilson developed a specialty in establishing and managing commercial “front companies” to facilitate covert operations similar to the Agency’s Vietnam-era “Air America” corporation that performed special services for the Other Government Agency.

Upon leaving government service as a Navy civilian, he entered the arms business in what he claimed later was an informal but real relationship with the Agency. In the process of brokering deals, he made a significant personal fortune as a quasi-civilian. Moammar Qaddafy was one of several clients served by his Consultants International office on 22nd St. NW. He enjoyed entertaining on his 2,500 acre estate in Fauquier County’s hunt country and relaxing at his seaside villas on Libya’s Mediterranean cost.

In his heyday, the Washington Post claimed he was worth $23 million dollars, though his high-flying career came crashing down when he was branded a traitor by his former employers. His arrest came in 1982 after being lured from the safety of his Libyan villa to the Dominican Republic, where he was arrested and transferred to the United States. He was convicted in Texas in 1983 for shipping 20 tons of C-4 plastic explosives to Libya, the largest arms transfer case in history at that time, and an amount of explosives equal to the entire domestic stockpile at the time.


(Edwin Wilson leaves Federal Court. Photo AP.)

Wilson was emblematic of the “rogue operative.” Other contemporaries included notorious financier Robert Vesco, who fled US jurisdiction for Cuba in 1982, and USAF Major General Richard Secord, convicted in 1989 of complicity in shipping arms to Iran. Secord’s conviction was overturned in 1992.


(Major General Richard Secord on active duty. USAF Photo.)

Wilson maintained that Secord was a “silent partner” in one of his companies, although the General strongly denied this allegation. Nonetheless, Wilson and other retired CIA officers were alleged to be working with Secord when Lt. Col. Oliver North of the National Security Council approached him to ask for help in buying arms for the Nicaraguan Contras, opponents of the Sandinista regime in Managua.

Secord maintained that there was no relationship, but there was a lot of that going around at the time.

Ed Wilson was tried four times on charges related to his business activities. In addition to the Libyan explosives charges, he was acquitted of soliciting the assassination of a Libyan dissident, convicted of Virginia weapons violations and accused in New York of soliciting the murder of two prosecutors, his ex-wife and witnesses against him.

Wilson maintained his innocence for the rest of his life. Throughout his two decades in Federal custody- most of it spent in solitary confinement- he harnessed the Freedom of Information Act to obtain internal CIA documents that suggested that he had continued an informal relationship with the Agency. In 2003, a federal judge in Texas ruled that evidence tampering likely precluded acquittal on the original explosives charges.

He was released from prison in September of 2004. Having declared bankruptcy, Wilson’s remaining years were spent subsisting on Social Security and his CIA pension with his brother in Edmonds, Washington.

In its obituary of the colorful rogue, the Washington Post quoted CIA expert David Corn as having found irony in the sordid tale. “They framed a guilty man,” Corn said in an interview in 2004. “I think he’s a terrible fellow who got what he deserved, but they did frame him.”

Survivors, include his long-time companion, Cate Callahan; two sons, Karl and Erik Wilson; and a sister. Graveside services are going to be held this morning at the Veterans Administration Tahoma National Cemetery in Kent County, WA.

I don’t know quite what to think about the legacy of his life. It was larger than most. I don’t know enough to say whether he was a rogue, or a gently guided missile harnessed with “plausible deniability.”

Presidents seem to like that. At least when it is necessary. Like Mission Impossible, the Secretary will disavow all knowledge, too, if that is the way it works out.

Copyright 2012 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

Out of Town (and Body)


(The rear exposure of the spectacular re-modeling of Raven and Big Mama’s house in the Little Village by the Bay).

It is the usual time and I am up doing the usual thing. It would seem like the last five days did not happen in the same space-time continuum in which I find myself lodged; it had so much in it. Some of it was spent out of body altogether, or so it seemed.

Hurtling up and down the Interstates, I was at one with motion and driving strategies on the always-under-repair ribbons of asphalt and concrete.

Forging forward in a gritty world of big trucks and little cars, big hills and long boring stretches of soybeans and corn under skies that alternately presented the best and sunniest of the end of summer, and the coming rains of winter as the season turned upon me Up North.

I accumulated more pictures- that is one of the things I do as a pretend photo-journalist- but these are emotional ones. The rear of the old family house is transformed by the reconstruction; the interior shot shows the central living area of the house blown out into glass and light with the walls eliminated and new tongue-and-groove flooring.


(Image of the smoke from the crash courtesy US Park Service.)

The image of the ball of smoke over the Shanksville pastures was captured from the “Interpretive” panels at the visitor’s center just beyond the debris field from the crash of Flight 93.

It truly is Fall up there, with the colors just beginning to erupt in brilliant reds and orange and yellow. A cold tongue of frost extended as far south as the Central Pennsylvania highlands, too.

I stopped yesterday morning at the crash-site of Flight 93. I was approaching Johnstown, famous for flood, and mulled a detour. “If not now, when?” I thought, and pulled off at the exit.

The hijackers, damn them, may actually have been headed for the Capitol Dome, but at the time we thought they were coming for us at CIA HQ. Damn cold and damn emotional, looking out across the meadow of wildflowers toward the bolder and the gap in the little copse of Aspen trees that mark the edge of the pit that was gouged out of the strip-mined earth when the jet rolled inverted and smashed in at almost 600 miles an hour.


(The crash site of Flight 93 yesterday. The white dot in the middle and the gap in the Aspen grove marks the resting place of the passenger and crew and their murderers. Photo Socotra.)

Driving east on US 30 over the Hole In the Wall tunnel over the Alleghany mountain spine was an adventure in hairpin turns and blind humps on the asphalt. Great wind-farms near the summit; disorientation at the unaccustomed and severe grades.

The Fall is coming to the Piedmont, but the wool Pendleton shirt I was wearing (I have owned it since 1974) only became a little oppressive when I rolled down the window here in Virginia and saw the hip-twenty-somethings in Ballston wandering around in shorts as I wheeled onto Glebe Road from I-66.

 


(The Panzer with petroleum umbilical near Torch Lake).

I had approached from the West, since the last forty miles in Maryland approaching the capital is just so…stupid. That asshole driving the red Blazer had some pals with him, and I was not sure I could take them on with the ball-bat I keep in the backseat.

They had seemed willing to kill me already, so once I got enough distance on them to be invisible, I ducked off on Rt 15 South and took the Greenway and Dulles Access Road in for the dog-end of 1800 mile trip.

I was filled to the brim with talk radio of both stripes- the exultant Dems and bitter Republicans. No, wait, beyond the brim. The vitriol sloshed over the top.

There was a lot to think about when I escaped to purely musical channels on the satellite radio that emanated from the speakers. I thought about how curious the whole swirl had been.

Stories I would have written, and might yet actually get to one of these days:

The Panzerwagen (an auto review of a pretty neat car and how it responds in crisis- see the last topic)

The One Percent (the people next door to my pal in suburban Detroit- my God, you have never seen a formerly upscale suburban neighborhood transformed into Baronial splendor that evokes the Gilded Age.)

Newlyweds (My son and his wife’s little 1950s bungalow just a mile or so from the 1% neighborhood where I grew up)

Storm Front (watching the Autumnal rain sweep toward the shore of the Big Lake from North Manitou island in a charming 110-year-old bluff-top retreat near Leland)

Like (I’d Seen) a Ghost (meeting the contents of the storage warehouse and plunging into despair)

Filling a Panzer (The stuff I thought our old friend Dee- “Call me Mom, now,” and I agreed was a few picture albums for me to take away from Torch Lake wasn’t. Books in boxes filled the car. Why did we think these things were so important?)

Petoskey Phoenix (the astonishing reconstruction of Mom and Dad’s House- OMG!)

Recovery (walking out of a gas station in Toledo and almost falling, making me realize I am not recovered, not just yet)


Crappy MOTEL (An account of the Meth Dealers in the next room at La Siesta, my destination of choice if I am falling asleep on the Ohio Turnpike short of Cleveland)

Let’s Roll (visit to the Shanksville, PA, crash site of Flight 93. Highly emotional.)

Concealed Carry (Road Rage- not mine- approaching Washington, and wishing I already had the concealed carry pistol permit that was waiting for me at home- though of course it was not legal in Maryland. Why do Terrapins drive so badly?)

Pretty crazy five days. Love the Panzer enough that I think I will continue to pay for it. Not a classic beauty, but a Teutonic gem of a car. It is down in the garage, still filled with boxes of the….crap…that my Brother and I thought were worthy of special treatment. I am hoping the photo albums are in there, but will wait to look at the farm.

I can’t think that well at the moment, though I know I have to go back to the Northland and deal with the large pile of things in storage, and nothing is really ever over.

Copyright 2012 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

Taking Offense

I was scanning the electronic pages of the NY Times this morning and found a gem. If I were of a mind, I might take offense at the scrap of Papyrus that quotes Jesus as mentioning his wife.

The Times was all over it: “This Sept. 5, 2012 photo released by Harvard University shows a fourth century fragment of papyrus that divinity professor Karen L. King says is the only existing ancient text that quotes Jesus explicitly referring to having a wife. King, an expert in the history of Christianity, says the text contains a dialogue in which Jesus refers to “my wife,” whom he identified as Mary. King says the fragment of Coptic script is a copy of a gospel, probably written in Greek in the second century. (AP Photo/Harvard University, Karen L. King)”

This contradicts what they told me back in Bible School in the middle of the last century, and I took instant offense at this insult to my religion. I looked carefully at the media to see if someone had committed the heresy of drawing a cartoon about it.

I did not find one, though the idea that someone might do so caused me to immediately round up a bunch of like-minded friends, drive to New York and torch the paper’s editorial offices.

Then we would hound the author of the story, and possibly ensure that she is asphyxiated in the blaze before driving around with her body for more than four hours before dropping it at LaGuardia and driving on to Boston to attack the Harvard Divinity School.

No one has a right to yell fire in a crowded theater, as I have heard often lately, and thus I feel fully justified in burning the theater myself.

I think. You can see what folly passes in this world as justification for brutish behavior. My attention to this ancient context has risen and fallen. I was more bemused than anything else about the discovery a couple years ago of the alleged ossuaries of the brothers of Jesus. I must have missed that back in Bible School, too.

As a consequence of the doctrine of perpetual virginity which stipulates that the Virgin Mary had no children after Jesus, scholars have considered the term “brother” of the Lord should be read “cousin,” and conclude that James “the brother of the Lord,” (Gal.1:19) is therefore the James of the Twelve Apostles.

Other Christian denominations consider the Matthew 1:25 statement that Joseph “knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son” to mean that Joseph and Mary did have normal marital relations after Jesus’ birth, and that James, Joses, Jude and Simon were the biological sons of Mary and Joseph, and thus, at least half brothers of the Savior.

Or, just his brothers.

That challenges the whole doctrine of Christian divinity, and thus I think I am fully justified in going to set fire to some libraries.

Honestly, would you have thought that the parallel madness to this little tale would actually be true in the Year of Our Lord 2012?


(Saint James the Just, one of the Savior’s “cousins.”)

Copyright 2012 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

 

Substance Abuse

Left Coast Guy is one of my better pals, and I noticed to my surprise the other day that we have known each other for almost 35 years. He has a serenity in his thought process that I often envy, and a gentle manner even when he is applying careful critical thinking to the issues of the day. He dropped a note this week to tell me that he thought I was getting a little dyspeptic of late- maybe even to a full-blown curmudgeon status.

I took his point. Old Jim has that territory covered, copyrighted, in fact, and accordingly I am going to back off. I am going to take a quick road trip and settle some estate matters for a couple days and maybe the exposure to talk radio on the long road to Up North will sooth my mood.

Hahaha. Sorry. There are some nagging last details on Raven and Big Mama’s estate that need to be cleaned up, and I am going to take advantage of the paralysis induced by the end of the Government Fiscal Year to dash up to the Little Village By the Bay and finish the Great Liquidation.

I have the iPod already set up in the Panzer and will be listening to random play-lists of music that have nothing to do with anything in particular, and nothing whatsoever about politics except maybe the older tunes that refer to when we were younger and wanted to overthrow the government.

I got a prepublication copy of a new survey in my in-box. It is alarmist, as all surveys these days seem to be, and hit close to home. The title of the thing is arresting: “ Substance Use Disorders in the U.S. Armed Forces.”

I alert on these things since I am sensitive to the way people who do not- and did not- serve look at the active and veteran populations. The whole Rambo thing about Vietnam Vets never sat well with me, and since the establishment of the all-volunteer force, the gap between the vast majority of the population and their military has only deepened. I can’t think of any prominent vets in the Administration except for Eric Shinseki at the VA.

I am completely OK with that, I guess, though a little of that “shared sacrifice thing” people are yammering about might go a long way to curing some of our more obvious problems. But enough of that. This particular survey was commissioned by the Pentagon itself, although it was paid for by the Department of Health and Human Services. It was conducted by a group of health professionals who make up the “Committee on Prevention, Diagnosis, Treatment, and Management of Substance Use Disorders in the U.S. Armed Forces.”

I scanned the report with interest, thinking that they might be on to something profound, like the idea that sending kids into the maw of endless wars with grinding repetitive deployments against implacable and brutal adversaries might have health consequences.

Shoot, I thought we were all in agreement on that. The number of troops and vets who have taken their own lives is appalling. The news from Afghanistan with the Green-on-Blue epidemic of violence is a case in point. How do you maintain equanimity and good mental hygiene with your host allies, of which a distressing number seem to think that bringing a belt-bomb to the morning meeting is a good way to start the week?

Anyway, I was not surprised by the fact that the troops seem to be self-medicating to cope with the stress. General Order Number One prohibiting anything fun notwithstanding, the Committee found that binge drinking and use of prescription drugs was a major problem.

I certainly would not be surprised if that is true- but of course, I could not find the table that determines exactly what the terms mean, and whether or not it is any more or less common than the behavior of the population at large. Judging by the crowds at the football games I watched over the weekend- when I was not sleeping in the parking lot at College Park- it would seem there is a fair amount of that going around.

The subject of the report was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn “from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine.” The members of the committee responsible for the report were chosen for their “special competences” and with regard for “appropriate balance.”

I was thinking that a recommendation to give the troops a break might be prominently featured, but I was not surprised to see one of the recommendations that made the Executive Summary. It is nothing less than a declaration of war on the tactical level. Here is the text of the recommendation:

“The institute…urges Defense to attack alcohol use at its source: base exchanges that sell alcohol. Below-market alcohol prices at base exchanges likely encourage elevated rates of unhealthy alcohol use.”

I am not sure what they consider “healthy” use, but my 93-year-old drinking buddy Mac would probably know. The report goes on to recommend “cutting the number of base outlets that sell alcohol and limit their operating hours.”

That ought to do it.

Jeeze Louise. I better get over to Fort Myer and get in line. The retirees are going to be up in arms.

Copyright 2012 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

My Favorite Royal


(Captain Harry Wales of 662 Squadron, 3RD Regiment, Royal Air Force)

I am sitting at the laptop with my face in the rictus of a smile (the skin on my face is still burned from the tailgate at College Park on Saturday) thinking about it all. Game Day was an all-day drunken debauch, and then it spilled over into the ritual celebration of the Closing of the Pool yesterday that went on until past bedtime for a “school night.”

Now there is the grim reality of Monday morning. I have to be in the office for a variety of perfectly good reasons, and need to be off. Accordingly, we will take a little diversion this morning and talk about my favorite Royal, Henry Charles Albert David, commonly known as Prince Harry. As you may know, the Prince had some public relations speed-bumps on the way to his second deployment to Afghanistan. What happened in Vegas did not stay in Vegas.

Captain Wales, as Harry is known, would have fit right in to our fighter squadron ready room years ago, if we were about to get underway for some stressful and potentially lethal operation. There are apparently some others who agree with that. My pal Nick in the UK sent along some photos from Her Majesty’s deployed forces expressing solidarity with Harry’s minor public relations issues.

With everything else going on, I just want to say: “God Save the Queen, and God bless the troops.”
Meanwhile, the pool is padlocked for the year and it is time to hunker down and get ready for Halloween and the Treehouse of Horror on November 6th. I found myself whistling an old Roger Miller song on my way to the shower: “No phone, no pool, no pets…wait, thank God I have some cigarettes…” No, hang on, I am supposed to be quitting that.

Gotta run. More tomorrow, gentle readers.

Vic

What’s all the Fuss? Soldiers from D Squadron The King’s Royal Hussars pose in front of tanks


Dare we say – Guns n Poses?


This is for fighting: These lads aren’t afraid to show off their weapons
Guns ‘n poses: These troops keep themselves camouflaged… just about


Soldier with a flag


Three lads and their helmets….
Camouflaged privates: These three use their helmets to help pay tribute
Camouflaged privates???

Game Day

It is game day Saturday, Maryland vs. U-Conn, and what I knew was going to happen after the insane week of proposal writing, happened.

 

I fell asleep shortly after eight- a pleasant thing- but not so pleasant when my eyes popped open at one-thirty. I was wide awake and could not get back to sleep until after three sometime- I got lost in that C.J Box Wyoming mystery-thriller for a couple hours and then had a very strange dream about being at a football game and getting into a fight with some guy who pushed me and I fell and hurt my leg again.

Weird. I obviously mixed up the anxiety of the 9/11 anniversary, and Raven and Mom’s 64th Anniversary two days after that and parts of the long recovery and rolled it into the tailgate-to-come today.

 

I drifted off for a while after the REM sleep passed and woke again about five-thirty and realized there was plenty to do yet- get ice, trundle down the silent corridor to get the ancient Thermos-brand red-metal cooler out of my storage locker, and bag up the bags of buns to pile on top of the cooler and the soft cool pack with the condiments and aged cheese and chips.

 

I feel a little wobbly on the leg after the hike around DIA yesterday pulling my cute little pull-cart with the boxed proposal on it. I obviously am not as far along in recovery as I like to think, and the long marble ramp the connects the new and old wings of the Headquarters showed me the difference between dragging the cart with the boxed proposal going up slope (no problem) and downslope (dicey).

 

The seats are about halfway down to the field, on the 50-yard line. Great seats, but there have been times we tumbled over the low bench seats for perfectly understandable reasons and I just don’t want to do that in a crowd.

 

Before the frantic preparation started, I thought about just cancelling, or meeting up for the convoy over to College Park and just handing over the food and announcing that I couldn’t take the risk.

 

What a pussy I have become!

 

Maybe I will just stay with the gear while everyone else troops off to the game- but if I am to do that, I will need to take a book and a radio.

 

There are certainly worse things than drinking vodka in the parking lot on a pleasant Saturday with all the game-day swirl of people and their personalities.

 

I just have the weirdest sensation. Like something is going to happen. I wonder what it might be. I can’t tell if it is big or little, personal or national. I just have that feeling. Is it what will happen in the wake of the Israeli strike on Iran? Is it about what is happening now, and that it will continue?
I should just relax and enjoy the game. But it is increasingly hard to relax. All the nerve ends are tingling.

Copyright 2012 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com