24 May 2016
Editor’s Note: Yeah, you can’t tell where the Daily is going to wind up on any particular morning. Yesterday we completed the agenda of events that will happen in Oahu to commemorate the Battle of Midway in 1942. I am proud to have been a 7th Fleet sailor in my time, and a resident of Hawaii for nearly six glorious years thereafter. It is a special place, and the observance of the pivotal battle that preserved it is important to me. But I was working on compiling an account of another pivotal cruise- the one that bridged the last months of the Cold War, and provides a perch somewhere between the whiskey-and-tobacco fueled Armada that won World War II, and the strange experiment in social justice that our armed forces have become. I have always been bi-coastal (not that there is anything wrong with it) and so we will veer back to the Wine Dark Sea. I will be looking through my notes to see if there are any of the ports I missed in this chaotic account, which will be consolidated into something much more linear and approachable shortly.
I got an invation in the mail this morning from a colleague at NAVAIR, inviting me to a celebration of LGBT diversity, with the most senior transgender officer in the Service to speak in a keynote address. So, think of this as a post card from another time.
– Vic
4 January 1990
Farewell to Paris
My last priority mission for the City of Light comes today. We visit Jim Morrison’s grave. Great day. Weird scenes in the goldmine, for sure.
I have to work on my feelings about this…It is a lovely day, and we take the subway around some of Paree’s less famous districts. I tried in my broken French to ask where Jim was taking a short break.
“Ou est la Tombe de le Jim Morrison?” I ask, to which the old lady responded by holding out her hand and asking for “dix francs, pour le plan du cimitere Père Lachaise.”
Actually, it was much easier. We could have found the grave just by following the day-glo spray-paint on the side of the headstones of famous non-rockers. It was an interesting scene at the grave, with a small crowd of young people hanging out. They were not saying much. There was one hippy; or at least whatever it is that long haired kids are these days.
The tomb was a simple granite block with the name “JIM MORRISON” carved on the front. Not his full name and no quote. That was quite nicely taken care of by the graffiti artists on every available piece of sanctified rock in the immediate line of sight.
My wife isn’t that interested and I am torn by my feelings about our strange times in that decade and the symbol of this man lying beneath us. At length it appears that no stunning revelation will come; it was just a time of Strange Days.
“So long, Lizard King,” I say as we walk away. The sun shines bright on the acres of intricately cut grey stone and the neatly-aligned streets of the city of the dead. We get back on the Metro and head to the old city, where we get off at Les Halles for a stop at a little cafe and enjoy wonderful au gratin onion soup near the Pompideau Ediface.
Then across the Seine once more and into the Palace of Justice to view Le Chappelle (some minor difficulty with security, first the wrong line and then the press and all those shouting people…)
The Royal Chapel exudes the dust of an age so long gone that all the buildings of its time have gone. The ancient glass transforms the exterior light to soft rose and the stone masquerades as lace. We sit on benches at the very back of the King’s private chapel and marvel at the sheer age of this place, and how out of time it is.
We wander south past the Sorbonne and the House of Deputies in the Palace Luxemburg. Eventually, we take the train back to Montemarte and have cocktails looking out over the city. Later, a super romantic last dinner highlighted by the news from the next table that they bagged pizza-face bantam General Manuel Noriega in Panama City.
The restaurant has a strolling violinist, and I ask for a tune suitable for the arrest of a dictator. It could not be a better or
sweeter ending to the trip.
Later, we discover black lingerie can be fun. Wow.
05 January:
We breakfast in Montemarte across from artist’s square, where we watch the painters assault the Japanese tourists whom we have seen everywhere.
Delicious Jambon avec frommage omelets with chunks of fresh bread. Fabulous cafe au lait. It can’t get any better than this, can it? Though a pall cast by the coming parting hangs silently. There is a flawless but long trip back out to Orly International. Standing on the platform at Carly de Roi, we wonder if we are ever going to get anywhere. The right train finally comes along and we triumphantly have completed nearly ten days without a wrong turn.
At the airport, we decrypt the system and make the line for the flight in order to be informed by an officious lady that The Airplane has been Threatened.
I evaluate the threat as low, based on my standing as a professional intelligence officer and leave the wife’s side only for a moment to visit the Mutual Of Omaha insurance machine. Joking aside, the threat adds an additional layer of tension to an already melancholy atmosphere.
“Should I go? Suppose they try to blow up the airplane?”
I feel helpless as the emotions begin to overflow- not just parting, but maybe the parting into eternity. What are the alternatives? Could we just sty, run away from the present and the Navy? Stay in the South or France and leave the kids to the Grandparents?
When the time comes we accept our fates, and it is a sad, emotional farewell through the customs gate. She is brave as she walks to her threatened flight and I am depressed and apprehensive about what might be to come.
The separation begins, again.
Lost in thought, I reverse course to the Gare de Lyon to find a train south and go back to the ship. I swill several beers at the station, killing time waiting for the train. I am filled with dread and growing anger at the Terrorists. When I board the TGV, I discover that I am seated in the midst of a bunch of Iranians in traditional garb. They have a profound aroma.
Several acolytes surround an ancient Imam. They have bathed, perhaps within the last week, using some foul-smelling substance that brings the bile up in my throat. I think they had to disinfect the Imam before he got on the train.
It is a really eerie thing, confronting these people. I was on Midway when we responded to the taking of the Embassy in Tehran after the French had provided asylum to Khomeini all those years, and I spent the next six months planning how to shove ordnance up their asses.
It is no wonder that I feel so strongly about their presence and I worry about my wife on her aircraft. I spend most of the trip back leaning against the wall of the swaying bar car to stay away from the Persians.
Finally arriving at the Marseille station, I walk back to the bus stop with a couple bubbas from the helicopter squadron- HS-15. We share stories of Paris and I think I unquestionably had the best time. The atmosphere on the Euro-bus back to the port and the pier where FID is berthed is boisterous and conflicts totally with my dark mood.
On the pier, sailors have built fires in old oil drums, and established a drum circle composed of empty paint cans, which they beat with a energetic primal rhythm, the red glow cast by the fire reflected on the steep gray hull casting shadows of dancing sailors. It is tribal. Our tribe.
Entering the security perimeter around the carrier, I decide to stop at the food tent and have a couple beers in the crisp air before re-embarking in the vast grey machine that looms above on the pier.
Josh and Lutt-man are waiting and they warn me of a frantic planning session aboard in progress even as we speak. Part of me wants to rush back in and take action but cooler heads prevail. There is a box with ten beers at Josh’s feet. Many, many beers come and go as I try to explain how wonderful the liberty had been, but the conversation always shifts immediately to the new targets we must plan and the preparations we must make to get underway again.
The FID looms above us in vast blank grayness. I guess I am back. While taking a leak near the dumpsters I discover a Turkish sailor going through the trash for intelligence and have the Shore Patrol detain him.
We walk up the ramp to the quarterdeck sometime after the beer sales are secured and all hostile intelligence collectors have been rounded up. Safe in my stateroom, I watch CNN news until I am sure that no Delta Airline Flight has been blown up.
With that, I can go to sleep in peace.
06 January 1990.
Work sucks. I am having a hard time getting back with the Program. I miss my family so much.
07 January.
My, my. Here we go again. There is a Staff meeting, early, to plan for the staff meeting later, which is to get ready for the Ops meeting after the staff meeting.
In the afternoon I jog out to a franc payphone and call home. The checkbook was overdrawn, but the wife is home and safe and sound. The younger son wants a new Mutant Ninja Turtle toy. I promise I will take him to Toys R Us when I get home. Then I jog back to ship. Jesus. Liberty secures 1800. There isn’t anything left to do but detox.
08 January.
Underway at 0800. The orange tugs usher us insistently away from the pier, coaxing the mighty FID to turn and head toward the breakwater and the open gray sea beyond.
Hail and farewell, Belle Français. We men of the Sixth Fleet thank you for your hospitality and for your wonderful food and for the most memorable of Holiday. Now it is back to work. I am hoping I can remember exactly what that is.
Copyright 2016 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com