Our Boss at THIRD Fleet, Vice Admiral herb “The Superb” Browne used to say “nothing good happens after midnight.” He was usually referring to the arrests or incidents in Tijuana at the Monday morning staff recitation of human failure. I would expand it to other events on the Left Coast, last night’s case in point being from San Francisco.
The evening had just about everything. I got a call from Ensign Socotra when I finally wound the Panzer into the space down in the garage and returned to the safety and comfort of my unit high above the green tarpaulin-covered pool at Big Pink. It was from my younger son about his meeting with the dreaded Detailer today. That is the term for the officer who passes out the orders for his next job- the one that should send him to The Fleet in some aspect.
This is one of the more traumatic rituals of military service- the obligatory conversation that will determine where in the wide world an officer will serve, and what they are expected to do when they get there.
The Navy is a complex system with many requirements for intelligence specialists, but mostly it is like everything else: round holes to be filled with square pegs, jamming young officers into aviation squadrons, or ships, or the more unusual and exotic requirements of the Special Warfare crowd- the SEALs.
The Ensign is prepared and has done his homework to prepare.
I know how this works from both sides of the desk, as supplicant and survivor. I was a Detailer in my day, a stressful job if you overthink it, and a challenge in any event, since people seem to be very sensitive about their lives. I recall a trip to Rota, Spain, one time in which I was scheduled to meet with the dozens of junior officers at our intelligence center there, plus the squadron kids onboard Coral Sea, the aircraft carrier in the Med at the time, just completing an extended cruise and six or seven months away from homeport.
Someone managed to snatch my briefcase at some point during an extended stint at the bar at the Rota Officer’s Club, and launched it over the balustrade of the club.
I got the briefcase back since it had only gone a dozen feet down the hill, but the contents were strewn downslope and I could not see them in the darkness. Consequently, I had to rise with the dawn’s early light to track down the scattered “preference sheets’ though which the officers up for orders communicated their desires to the Bureau of Personnel.
I think I found most of them, though it is possible that some individual desires were not accommodated by the system. Go figure.
Anyway, once I made the usual platitudes (though specifically I did not use the “bloom where planted” mantra. Screw that.) I just asked him to keep me posted and turned on the first game of the World Series.
I arrived at Fox Channel 5 just in time to see Giant center fielder “Kung Fu Panda” Pablo Sandoval hit a solo home run in the first inning, on an 0-2 pitch off Justin Verlander. I knew it was going to go south from there, just a feeling, and went to bed. In saw this morning that the Giants went on to knock Justin off the mound in only four innings, after three more runs in the third, and another couple HRs from The Panda, tying a record for Series home runs in a single game. Seeing the whole messy 8-3 Giants victory would not have made me feel any better than I do now.
But early to bed, early to rise is a good thing, I guess.
I am scanning the news for portents of what is to come. If the Series goes on like this, the Giants could put the Tigers away in four. Verlander was supposed to be the ace who would be good for two wins- his failure to win his first start puts the Bengals in the hole, big time, and throws off the scheme for the rest of the pitching rotation against the San Franciscans.
We will see, I guess. But baseball is supposed to be in the afternoon, not at midnight. Herb the Superb was completely correct.
The Series could be over in less than a week. Then there will be nothing to occupy our attention before Thanksgiving.
Or maybe there is something else. The election is going to be tight, they say. I imagine the news won’t be in until after midnight at the earliest. I am betting Herb will be right about that one, too.
Copyright 2012 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com