(The bridge to Olongapo City from the Naval Reservation at Subic Bay in the 1970s. The kids standing atop one another in the banka boats in the Hit River are begging for alms. In the distance is the billboard for the stereo equipment we all had to have, and the famed Marmont Hotel).
I had the leftover turkey from the generous Thanksgiving portion served up at Willow last night for breakfast. The relish plate with Poliface Farms deviled eggs and cheese crackers and celery sticks was a tasty start, and the prix compIet menu that followed- Caesar salad, turkey with all the trimmings followed up with pumpkin and pecan pie and coffee- a delight.
It was a thoroughly satisfying holiday experience, and the place was jammed with happy diners. I ate at the bar, at my usual stool, and felt at home. I guess I should- the restaurant has served as my living room since I started working in the Ballston neighborhood of Arlington.
Since that is coming to an end, I need to think about other things. I have lived in Big Pink longer than I have lived anywhere else in my life, and it will be quite an adjustment when I am done here, which I do not think will be long.
The onset of this early winter has directed my thoughts south, to dodge the chill. I have been thinking again about the Keys, and the Gulf Coast as a place of refuge for the coldest months, but that in turn left me drifting in a reverie about tropical places.
Olongapo City in the Philippine Islands is still there, and I get reports about what has happened to the base we used to visit. There is talk about the Fleet going back as a counterweight to an increasingly aggressive China.
Even if we do return, it won’t be the same. I read in the paper that liberty hours are being restricted in Japan, where we still have a major presence. That may be related to something horrible that happened in Olongapo last month.
Pfc. Joseph Scott Pemberton was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 9th Marines, embarked in US Peleliu (LHA-5) is accused of murdering a transgendered woman at a hotel out in the Ville, and the events since have been ugly.
I suppose it always was, but the old Olongapo lives on in dreams. Fevered dreams, since the lens of my mind was distorted by alcohol and desire, and lubricated by sweat.
I wrote about that a little while ago, and I have to say the grimy reality of those days still leaves me feeling ambiguous
It is quite over, and has been for years, since Mount Pinatubo blew its stack and gave everyone the excuse to end the acrimony.
The Base is still there, or at least the bones of it. The aircraft on poles that decorated squadron installations have been taken down. The Club is there, though it is a hotel, and the furnishings to the legendary bar are in Pensacola, FL; the PX remains, though it is now a duty-free store. The Arthur Radford Field is still there, though it is now a FedEx hub. The tough little Negritos are still teaching at the Jungle Evasion and Survival School, though it is now a zoo of sorts.
Of course, it always was.
During the Vietnam conflict, the nightclub district of the Po was able to handle the disparate and simultaneous recreational needs of three aircraft carrier battle groups, and it could again, if the Filipinos feel threatened by what the Chinese are up to, dredge up sand to create airstrips in the middle of the great commercial sea routes through what the RP government is now calling the “West Philippine Sea,” rather than what we called the South China Sea.
Words have power, I think. Back in my day, the city had adapted to taking care of one aircraft carrier strike group at a time. Midway (CV-41) was a frequent visitor, the local lady home-ported in Yokosuka to the north and her swift gray acolytes. Periodically the West Coast Show-Boat groups of Ranger, Connie and Coral Sea would cycle through.
It was an earthy carnival that waited at the end of the river of dollars that kept the Naval Reservation and its sprawling components of the Subic Bay and the Naval Air Station at Cubi Point afloat.
I cannot do it justice in the space and time permitted. The first few minutes of the film “An Officer and a Gentleman,” were filmed right there with the backdrop as it existed in those days, and the monkeys really did race out from the trees next to the golf course to steal balls, and Romi really did pour Cubi Specials at the BOQ bar along side a .25-cent Cubi Dog, and outside the gate the scrawny little brown kids, some with blue eyes, begged for alms.
Rattan furniture and intricate carved wood. Cheap t-shirts with crude silk-screened messages. Young women from the provinces, old beyond their years.
There was exploitation and the enormous cruelty of crushing poverty, and there was love and laughter and theft and confusion. Ducklings fed to alligators; dogs stolen and eaten; serial polygamous American-Filipino families created by regular deployments.
Sigh.
It was a complex place, and sickly sweet, like a fried plantain doused with syrup left to congeal in the relentless moist heat.
It did not take long for the place to cloy. A four-day port-visit was normally about all I could handle.
That was not the case for the troops. Olongapo was designed for the enlisted sailor. The price was right for kids making nothing much, but who may have had a couple paychecks in the front pocket of their dungarees, and they could live like princes for a few days. You could live quite comfortably on a retired Chief’s pay, if you cared to do it, and that is what many 7th Fleet sailors did.
A dear friend wrote me about her days as a young Navy wife in the Philippines just after the Korean War. I edited a book for a group of the squadron wives, who told their stories to Pauly Varney- she called it “Living With the Shadow Warriors,” and it is a fun read. It is the first (and so far, only) production of Socotra House Publications, and an exercise in trying to figure out how to start doing what the name of the company suggests. It worked, and it is a fun read:
http://www.amazon.com/Living-Shadow-Warriors-Stories-Ferret/dp/1936866005
My pal’s husband was assigned to a squadron based at NAS Sangley Point, one of the dozens of installations around Manila Bay. Part of the deal of independence struck between President Roxas and the Three Generals- Macarthur, Electric and Motors- was a century-long lease for twenty-three military bases to house the American infrastructure in the Far East.
That was consolidated into two vast reservations north of the capital; the naval complex at Subic and the Army Air Corps at Clark Air Base.
A few special sites, including the spooks at San Miguel and the resort at Camp John Hay were retained as well, but Manila was essentially cleansed of the Colonial presence, even as two low-rent and thoroughly secular Disneylands were created elsewhere.
Bobbie K. Hubbard retired right there in Subic, right in the heart of Disneyland. He may have been fighting liver cancer this past year.
As my old boss Vinnie observed, “He was one helluva Intelligence Specialist, and was the very best leading chief on Midway,” and for my money, he was the best shipmate and mentor a young officer could have.
That is, if he was not cursing you or banging you against a locker for doing something stupid.
Hubs settled right into the landscape in retirement, his belly vast and his face inscrutable.
After the treaty for the Subic Bay Naval Station ran out in 1992, the son of the previous mayor (and mayor at the time), Richard Gordon, succeeded in getting the land turned into the Subic Bay Freeport Zone.
Shortly thereafter, most of the places that catered to the service members closed down, causing a severe impact on the local economy. It wasn’t as severe as the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991, which left 14 inches of wet ash on the city.
It was nothing like what happened to Clark. Of course, that is where Hubs is plated now, forever in the rich loamy soil of the Clark Cemetery. There are some places in a foreign field that will always be America. It will be interesting to see of there will be another generation of sailors who know the place as a sort of home.
Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303