(Operation Homecoming Flight Arrives at Clark AB, RP, 1973)   I looked morbidly at the on-line edition of the Times this morning. It is just turning gray. There is stuff to do this morning at the office, and I have guests coming from a long way off. I need to do something about that, but […]

  Something quite ordinary happened in the wake of the great mobilizations required to ensure victory over the Kaiser and the Fuhrer and the Commissars, and a sad compromise in Korea and a defeat in Vietnam.   Dick Nixon told us that “everything we knew about Vietnam was wrong,” except for the end of it. […]

(H.Ross Perot exchanges views with President George H.W. Bush with candidate Bill Clinton of Arkansas. AP Photo) The clouds have blown over, now beyond the Chesapeake to the wide ocean. The “dusting of snow” they predicted is six inches deep on the balcony.   Dusting, my sorry butt.   The moon is closer than usual […]

(John Kerry testifies to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,   I don’t know if the war in SE Asia is over yet. I mean, the last WW II vet to have been president is around and still going strong. Still, I think the Vets from America’s war in Vietnam who could have been president have […]

(Rear Admiral Walter Schlech presenting the golden aiguillette- The Rope- to his new Aide, LTJG John Kerry, 1970) It is said some places that you should never marry a woman who is worth less than $300 million dollars, like John Kerry.   There are others who respond that, regardless of gender, anyone who marries for […]

ENS John Kerry, top, third from right, at NOB Norfolk, 1967. Official Navy photo.)   I am going to embark on a sensitive topic this morning. I know what Rex thought about Senator Kerry, and I know how the (now) Senior Senator from Massachusetts has been a burr under a lot of saddles since he […]

(Navy Wedding Cake Topper- photo copyright Helyn Rose Studio 2010) . Rex had a wonderful marriage of 49 years to Derlie, formerly of Jacksonville, Florida. It only ended with her death in 1998, and they adored one another. It has occurred to me frequently in the course of this long wandering through the life and […]

  “No event in American history is more misunderstood than the Vietnam War. It was misreported then, and it is misremembered now. Rarely have so many people been so wrong about so much. Never have the consequences of their misunderstanding been so tragic.” Richard Nixon, former President   In the latter part of Admiral Rex’s […]

Lyndon Johnson served, as well, though this is where things start to get a little strange. They always do around Lyndon. Ike and JFK were for real. LBJ had been appointed a Lieutenant Commander three days after Pearl Harbor while still a serving Texas Congressman. He worked on production and manpower problems in the mobilizing […]

  I was out doing gentleman farmer things early against the coming rain today. It was just coming light when I got the hose out, the long extension cord and the power drill to make an attack on the barn gutter that was knocked down by the weight of the compacted snow of the great […]