It was not the last time I was in Paris, but it was certainly the most expansive I can imagine. I got a note from Point Loma about his memories of the City of Light, and in recognition of a profound bit of news that came by phone this morning- very good news, BTW- I am going to let him do the heavy lifting this morning. I would tell you the news, but the news is embargoed until released by those concerned in the event. Here at The Daily, we may move from the City of Light to the Eternal City next, but in the meantime, here is Paris just a few years later:
“What a great travelogue series, Vic. To do it with the Lutt-man must have made it even more interesting.
Paris for me, after my indoctrination as a sailor on liberty in 1983, became an addiction when I accepted orders to EUCOM headquarters in Stuttgart the next year. Given the proximity, I made several trips there early on, and had exhausted the tourist things to do in the first half of my tour. I walked all over that town, maybe ten miles over the course of a weekend visit. I was no longer a tourist, maybe not a local, but something else.
It was about that time, in 1986, when the French got involved in a proxy ground war in Africa in one of their former colonies. They were contesting control of it with the Libyans, led by the former brother leader of the revolution, Muammar Gaddafi. They needed intelligence, the kind that only we could provide.
Since we were the Intelligence Collections Division of the European Command Headquarters (J2-C), we got the job. It involved taking stuff over to the French, and providing it to them via the US Embassy and the attaché’s office.
In the beginning it was a somewhat haphazard operation, and my fellow members of the J-2C were drafted into supplying the courier bodies. They bitched about that duty taking them away from their jobs and making them late for dinner. Since I was the only single guy in the division at the time and sensing an opportunity, I volunteered to take this one on.
What were the other guys bitching about? I soon arranged it so that the courier deliveries were scheduled for Fridays, when I could put on one of my suits from Harilelas in Hong Kong and make the trip over myself; which meant that I could spend weekends in Paris on liberty as long as I got back sometime on Monday to assume the collections watch duty in the afternoon.

Suitably attired in Hong Kong mufti, I would mount my airborne steed (a C-12 twin turbo-prop or C-21 jet) and launch out of Stuttgart on the mission. Most people know that there are two big airports in Paris – Orly (where Lindbergh landed) and Charles de Gaul, which is akin to Dulles outside of DC proper.
However, there is a third close-in airport reserved for French official and VIP flights called Villacoublay. That is where we landed. Imagine a beautiful Friday afternoon, banking into Paris wearing your best bespoke clothing on a jet on a serious mission, with nothing but fun to come afterwards. Met by the armored embassy car, I was whisked downtown to la Place de la Concorde and the US Embassy at #2 Rue Gabriel. Once I cleared the Marine guard shack, I was ushered into the attaché spaces and able to open the briefcase that was wired to my wrist, and hand over the information that the Army Attaché- the ARMA- had to take over to the French military intelligence service later that day.
After a couple of trips doing this, the embassy admin ladies knew me (I always brought them German chocolates) and when I called over, they would set me up with hotel rooms on the Left or Right Banks at embassy rates, bien sur. Once the business end was done, then I settled in for some serious liberty in the City of Light.
My modus operandi was to go check into the hotel, and then head to Happy Hour at some classic place like the bar at the Ritz at la Place Vendome, or Harry’s New York at 5 Rue Danou for the obligatory scotch or two. Suitably prepared, I would decamp back to the hotel and change into more suitable Eurotrash clothing – jeans, a turtleneck, and leather jacket. Then, I would head to one of the other usual places. By that I mean the one of the tourist bars made famous by Hemingway like La Closerie de Lilas or Aux Deux Magots.

In those clubs I would invariably meet American, Brit or Aussie gals who were visiting and lost in the big city. You could tell who they were since they invariably had their Fodor’s guides on the table, and were puzzling over maps of the Metro. Since I spoke fairly fluent French and had some favorite bistros- “Little places I know you might like,” in my back pocket, I would offer to help guide their way around Paris for the weekend while I was there.
In addition to having some female companionship, it was great fun to show them unique aspects of a city that I had come to think of as my own. I made the courier trip over there about a dozen times over a two-year time frame before I left for Spain. On Sunday or Monday evenings – in case of a long weekend – I would take the overnight sleeper train back to Stuttgart. Like I said, I was an addict to that place.
One of my former roomies in Stuttgart is now married to a French gal and works at the embassy in Paris. I visited him a couple of years ago off of a TDY trip to Germany. He met his wife at a Halloween party in Paris in 1988 the year that we drove over from Stuttgart.
Rolling into the city, we were playing the Door’s hypnotic ‘LA Woman,’ half drunk (yeah, we were drinking beer the whole way over) and singing along with Jim at the top of our lungs. After a very surreal Halloween party, on All-Saints day, we went out to Pere Lachaise to make the pilgrimage to visit “Jeem.”
It was a great fall day, cool and clear, with the leaves changing, blazing in their glory. There were signs pointing the way to go see “Jeem” so we had no problem finding his grave. Once we got there, and as you so aptly described, there were some stoners doing their thing, and a lot of graffiti defacing the surrounding tombs around his.
The best best line I saw read: “Jim, you are in deep shit now.”
Jim Morrison’s dad was a naval officer and retired as a two-star admiral in the mid-70s. He was a naval aviator and in the early 60s, the skipper of the USS Bonhomme Richard (CV-31), the famous ‘Bonnie Dick.” Later, he was Admiral on the same ship. He was the battle group commander during the Tonkin Gulf incident off Vietnam in late 1964. My uncle, a Skyraider pilot like your dad, was the Air Boss on the Bonnie Dick when George Morrison was the CO.
He said that it was no wonder that Jim Morrison turned out to be so rebellious since his dad was a tightly wound, Type-A overbearing-asshole. His favorite thing to do in port was to get the crew up on the flight deck in the morning and lead PT, where he proceeded to prove that he could do more push-ups and sit-ups than anyone else onboard. Interestingly enough, he was the keynote speaker at the de-commissioning ceremony of the Bonnie Dick on July 3rd, 1971, the very same day that his oldest son died in Paris under ‘mysterious circumstances.’
So, it was great to go back but it was not the same Paris that I remembered. That Paris moved pretty much in tune with the US and UK college school years – it was slow in the winter and spring and got real busy after Memorial Day, died out in August, and after Labor Day, was pretty much dead until the holidays and thereafter until Spring.
I was there in September and the Chinese and Japanese tourists by the bus and plane loads pretty much ensure that the tourist season now continues year-round – there were lines everywhere and it was hard to get a seat in any decent bistro. I felt sorry for the Parisians because it now seems like they never get their city to themselves to enjoy anymore.
At that time 30 years ago, EUCOM was considered a backwater and career-killer but what the fuck did I care? At least for me, it was the best second-tour Junior Officer assignment you could ever imagine. I got to do everything, go everywhere and then ski thirty days every year. In addition to the other fun stuff involved with my job, I turned what everyone had thought was a piece-of-shit courier chore into something else indeed.
Sometimes, you’ve got to create it when given the opportunity, and there were plenty of people lining up to take my place when I left.
Is there any wonder why I extended my two-year tour to four? I just hope that your JG and other up and coming JOs are equally as entrepreneurial and lucky at finding something as exciting for their next shore assignments.
Copyright 2014 Vic and Point Loma
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Twitter: @jayare303