12 March, 1990
Editor’s Note: I am dragging this out not because I am too lazy to do original content, but rather because it is the missing third of a book I wrote 26 years ago about an interesting part of the world that is in the process of unraveling. One of the manuscripts once thought long gone has surfaced, and I vowed to do something about it. As it turns out, scanning the paper into editable format has been much more of a challenge than something simple like taking potshots at politicians who so richly deserve it, so join me on a little sojourn in a simpler time when many things actually made sense.
I am up up early on the ship and full of virtue. Doc Feeks has a crushing hangover and stays in bed .Mark and I are the only alert action officers. We need output from the 0900 meeting, which will provide general guidance on the MISSELEX we have to plan for the big National Week exercise in just fourteen days. Naturally, this is a major pain in the ass, because the messages can’t be generated until we know whether the Admiral likes our surveillance plan and concept of operations. This has all the potential to be a major goat-rope, since among other minor problems the area is in the middle of the major shipping routes of the central Med.
When the meeting is over, a bunch of tasking is issued. Nothing for me, yet, since I can’t distill the messages for briefings or pilot kneeboard cards until they are actually written. Mark and Lutt-man are going to be snowed under, but there is no particular reason for me to stick around.
The Air Wing is supposed to have a presence in the former capital of Israel, Tel Aviv, or “The Hill of Spring.” I think we are supposed to pretend to know that it didn’t move after 1967. I am eager to see the place, since it was the first modern city built in the country and is said, like New York, to be a “city that never sleeps.” It is the real economic and cultural center, with a dynamite nightlife that we wanted to sample.
Chop has been delegated to open up the Admin at the Tel Aviv Hilton, so he will be leaving in a car about noon. I attach myself to the raiding party, which will feature Toad, Doc Flynn, CAGMO, Chop and myself. We are waiting on the fantail when Hof Lewis and the Staff guys arrive to take the Admiral’s Barge into town. Hof waves us on; I am glad I am wearing my sport coat.
Boating has not improved much; the camel is still two feet too high and the boat is rocking and rolling in the swell. We make it aboard safely, though, and are deposited on the beach in crackerjack fashion. We are trying to find DCAG’s car when the Senior Shore Patrol rounds the corner and tells Doc his professional services are required. One of the kids who run the Admirals barge got thrown off the boat and has perhaps crushed a couple ribs.
Doc gets involved in his primary mission while we wait outside, since he confronts a medical emergency in the lobby of one of the harbor buildings, a young black sailor is writhing in agony on a Stoke’s Litter. This does not bode well. We have to wait for Toad to arrive on the next boat, so we go out the gate and have a Maccabi beer in the now-brilliant sunshine and watch the passing spectacle on the street. Every race on the globe is represented in the passing throng.
Dark Yemenis walk and gesture with blonde Germans. There is a tale in every face.
After a beer we walk back. Doc has to escort the injured sailor to the hospital because the corpsman can’t be located. Toad has arrived; we bundle into the Deputy’s car and blast up the beach road toward Tel Aviv with Mr. Toad at the wheel.
I feel my head starting to nod, and the next thing I know I am hearing the through my doze an intensely strange BBC program about the topography of a woman’s body. It is related by male presenters in the most salacious terms. I come to consciousness as the
commentators are plodding up the mons venus. We are slightly lost in Tel Aviv, looking for the beach and the Hilton. We are turned around several times before we find the
place. Checking into CAG’s executive suite is a breeze. The lobby show is extraordinary, well heeled men and women swirling through the vast cavern, a piano tinkling softly in the background.
The view is magnificent from room 1009. Tall smokestack and airfield to the north with strange military aircraft buzzing in and out. An Israeli gunboat sits sentinel just beyond the line of surfers at the wave break.
We sortie immediately to stock the bar with frosty cold ones.
We enjoy a couple of these in the room while waiting for the next car to arrive with our leadership. We go down to the lobby to have a beer and see who shows up and sit with the Fighter guys for a half hour and watch them make zone-five passes at two pretty Canadians who are enjoying tea.
I might have mentioned this a couple times already, but everyone has a story here. These newest stories- from Yona and Sharon, as it develops- are that big sister lived here for her first eleven years and Baby Sharon has lived all her twenty-two years in Canada. Their Father got them out of the country after the ’67 War. The family is still in Tel Aviv, and Yona has arrived to attend a wedding the next day.
Sharon is attending Hebrew University for a year to get familiar with the country. We drift back to the room as the Fighter guys are cuing up for additional attack runs.
As the clock swings inexorably to 1900 and no one else in sight, we decide to get our on the street and take a look at the city.
It is raining gently as we walk down the beach toward town. Nothing is happening.
We have a falafal in pita to keep our strength up and bounce around aimlessly. There are many bars and restaurants, but no one is in them. Someone comes up with the intelligence that Israel’s version of Halloween has just gone a few days before and consequently everyone is a bit partied out. Disappointing.
As the rain intensifies we are driven into a pleasant white-painted bistro with a student crowd where we enjoy tall draft Maccabis and dine on a huge plate of French fries. There was a stunning blonde waitress with whom Chop immediately fell in love. I am confident she had a story, too, but I didn’t hear it.
Later, in the lounge of the Hilton, Yona and Sharon have returned and laugh through about 60 Air Wing Six amorous target run-ins. Toad and I cash it in about midnight with the lounge still rolling with the echoes of the Thunder’s Squadron Song.
CAGMO is on the phone to the U.S. and has his wife call mine to give her the number so she can call the room. I talk to her and the boys for about twenty minutes. They sound great. This cruise is almost over. After we finish I walk back out on the balcony and smoke a cigarette with Doc Feeks. The surf crashes into the seawall below and the sky has cleared.
I am so far away. That was the last chance to call before the big gray boat turns west and we get to go home.
Copyright 2016 Vic Socotra
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