(Lieutenant Thomas Wheat Swearing in some New Fish. Photo courtesy t3.gstatic.com)   I recall the day with a sort of vague cotton wool memory. It was in Detroit, at the Military Entrance Processing Center, and a disengaged Petty Officer handled me after the young Lieutenant had me raise my right hand and recite some words. […]

(The disaster in progress. Photo Socotra)   I could not help myself. I overslept and could not even get to the Times with all the crazy summer stuff going on. My fingers twitched on the keypad and …   Dammit, I did it again. I curse this addiction to the written word. There are other […]

(A little behind on the garden this year. Photo Socotra)   I identified several more projects I doubt that I will do, and eventually we dined on a meal with sufficient carbs to get J.P. down the narrow valley roads in the morning, and sat on the back deck as the light faded.   I […]

(The Polish National Team, L-R: Blues Brother, Socotra, Mikhail, Butterfly Man. photo by Jeremy) I knew the problem had begun in the Balkans; all the problems of modern times do. I did not realize how significant the long shadow of the Battle of Vienna was going to be on this placid but stifling season.   […]

  You can always complain about the weather- that is our inalienable right, like complaining is in the Service. At times like this, Brooks Brothers shirt plastered with sweat against the black leather seat of the Hubrismobile, it is tempting to slip into a reverie about climate change.   My pal Muhammed has been bitching […]

  There are a whole bunch o good reasons why the memo came down saying that I could no comment on it. You know what I am talking about, though I am not talking.   I thought it was a fairly reasonable bit of coverage, probably something the public ought to be aware of, but […]

“Yes. Layton made admiral, but he dragged his feet at printing his story of the war. So much of it was highly classified. His book “And I was there” didn’t come out until 1985, and that was posthumous, too.” “I still can’t believe it was a drydock they forced him to. I imagine that ensured […]

General MacArthur arrived at Atusgi Air Base on the 30th of August, the strangest month in the strangest year in human affairs to that date. I used to stay at Atsugi periodically and marveled at the revetments of old gray concrete that protected Saburo Sakai’s Zero fighters still ring the ends of the field.   […]

(Lehigh University graphic on the history wars)   I said that everyone who saw it who had a dad that would have been there for the apocalypse would have disagreed with him.   “They started too soon,” said Mac. “Too many of use were still alive who remember. They had to change the story board […]

(IJN Yamato, dead in the water and damaged. USN Photo)   “April Fools Day. We found Yamato on the sixth, and sank her the next day. The Japs lost over 107,000 military and civilian on land and 4,000 sailors at sea. It cost us almost seven thousand soldiers and another five thousand sailors to the […]