(Blindfolded US captives at the Embassy in Tehran, Iran, 1979.
You would think if there was a time to go to General Quarters, this would be it. Instead we seem to be sleepwalking through all sorts of stuff that is really important. I am not going to go off on the Iran Nuclear Talks, the side deals, the sanctions, the UN General Assembly ratifying the terms before the Senate get to provide the “Advise and Consent” stuff that I read back in civics.
Everything seems a little strange these days. Maybe it is just me. I have been at odds with the Islamic State for a long time, almost 36 years. So forgive me if I am a little peeved by all this.
Back in the parallel universe, Ma Midway is trucking on north at best speed, and the Iranian “Students” are parading their captives around, daring the Great Stan to do something rash. It was with that in mind that I took IBM Selectric typewriter in hand to pound out something. There was an alias in the Air Wing FIVE roster, a fake officer who could be blamed for just about anything- “Frank Dracman” was his mane, and he was a known liberty risk in every port in WestPac, and should have been in permanent HACC- House Arrest, Confined to Quarters. The only mail he should have been getting were non-punitive Letters of Caution, which is to say, in the Indian Ocean any mail is better than none at all.
Here is Number Four from the Tattered Casebook:
“THE ADVENTURES OF NICK DANGER, PRIVATE DICK”
TODAY’S EPISODE: “ESCAPE AT GQ”
THEY WERE MARCHING US THROUGH THE BIG STEEL ROOM FILLED WITH AIRPLANES. The guy at the front of the line kept yelling, “Gangway! Gangwayl” at the top of his lungs. He said it with a rising inflection that made it like a chant.
The only thing I knew for sure in this strange place was that I didn’t like it.
I was wearing some baggy shorts, a white T-shirt, and a vacant look. I heard through the prison grapevine that they were going to P.T. the dog-squeeze out of us.
Whatever THAT meant. We were marching past a low-slung jet airplane – one of those modern supersonic jobs. Suddenly the loudspeakers overhead started to blare: “General Quarters! General Quarters! All hands man your battle stations!”
The line started to move faster. I wasn’t a contender in the light-middleweight L.A. Golden Gloves of 1944 for nothing. I stepped quickly out of line and hid behind the landing gear of the jet. The line marched away without me, still chanting.
I was free! Now all I had to do was get uptown and find the Fat Man. I stepped out and tried to flag down one of the funny little square yellow taxis that were driving around. No one stopped for me. It looked like I was going to have to walk. I needed some new clothes, too.
I saw a guy in khaki pants and shirt strolling by. I walked up to him. “Say, Bub, you got a light?”
The guy looked at me blankly. “In the hangar bay?” he asked.
I clipped him on the jaw and he went down like a felled ox.
I stripped him of his khakis and put them on. I put him in my prison shorts. As I walked away, I looked down at my name tag. I was now “ENS Frank Dracman, VF-161.”
Whoever the hell that was.
I walked casually away. I passed a guy in denim dungarees and a badge.
“You might want to check out that guy in the shorts over there,” I mentioned calmly.
“Thanks, Mr. Dracman.”
I liked the sound of it. Things were starting to look up.
TOMORROW: “TERROR IN THE OFFICER CORPS”.
DON’T MISS IT!