I am shivering a little this morning with mental exhaustion. I just finished the tribute issue of the Quarterly for Mac Showers and shipped it off to lay-out, and it was both emotional and hard, since I had to scoop up some representative stories from our long collaboration to illustrate some of his remarkable life.
I am a man and will never know the miracle of gestation and the labor of birth, but I have seen it up close. The feeling I am feeling now must be something like it.
Meanwhile, life goes on and the calendar is full as the Winter heads this way.
I was asked by a secular saint named Annie to “cover” a surprise birthday party for a legendary Nasal Radiator last night.
The back-story was much more than an ordinary birthday celebration for an iconic old man. Annie is very special in my life, and she has a story of personal courage that I would love to tell sometime. She let me tell her mother’s amazing story about adventures in the former Yugoslavia a few years ago, thankfully before the delightful woman passed from this world.
I have been honored to be along for several of the Last Crusades. Rex Rectanus had one- to honor the memory of Jack Graf, the captured LDO who wounnd up getting shot down by the VC and was tortured and ultimately killed. My suspicions are that he got as far as Lubianka or someplace in the Gulag and could even be alive today- but that was not the point.
Rex felt personally responsible and worked hard to have his memory revived. I was happy to help.
I missed Mac’s last quest- when I knew him, he was a teacher, mentor and guide for folks confronting cancer and Alzheimers, but his Last Crusade was to circumvent the wartime distortions of the vile Redman Brothers and get Joe Rochefort the DSM he so richly deserved for breaking the JN-25 Naval codes and enabling the most astonishing five minutes of the Pacific War at Midway. Then the Redman brothers stabbed him in the back, got his medal denied, trashed his reputation and got the most gifted cryptologist of his era shipped off to command a floating dry-dock.
Joe died before Mac ultimately succeeded, as did Chester Nimitz and Jasper Holmes did, though they had tried to correct the travesty. Mac pulled it off. Ted Bronson is trying to do the same sort of thing.
(ENS Edward F. “Ted” Bronson.)
Ted Bronson was, in the words of Annie: “Loving son, Uncle, Godfather, Man of God, Loyal American, Raconteur, Pack Rat extraordinaire, Relentless, Faithful, Paion in the Posterior, Philanthropist, Loyal Friend, Passionate, Aviator Beyond Compare, and generally the greatest thing since sliced bread.”
Just ask him.
Anyway, Annie had a health scare this year, and honoring Ted is one of the things she decided to move off the bucket list and have a minor crusade about.
Ted has a crusade, too, which I will get to in a minute.
His 80th birthday was yesterday, and Annie pulled out all the stops to honor him. She hired the ballroom of the new Army-Navy Country Club, got a pianist to play holiday songs, full bar, great buffet and lots of influential people. She asked me to come and take pictures, and as the Jimmy Olsen of volunteer publications, I was happy to comply.
(Ted Bronson and mistress-of-ceremonies Lisa Newell).
Ted was a Spad driver- first 2,000 hours of Navy flight time in the big bomb-hauler, then stints in A-4 Scooters and A-7 Corsair IIs on nearly all the Navy’s big decks.
(Ted at the controls of the big AD Skyraider.)
He was an aviator’s aviator, and arced across Annie’s attention when she was laboring in the upper reaches of the Pentagon with the rambunctious and personable almost not JOs in the back room of LA-5.
Last night was a glittering affair, though the usual Washington traffic demons were on display- the GW Parkway was abruptly closed, and one of the Interstates leading into the Imperial City had major problems. What do they say? “In Washington you are either a half hour early or a half hour late.”
No happy mediums. There were several former flag officers who have passed through Annie’s tender ministrations, and they were there, bigger than life, including Dick Mackey, the former CINCPAC.
(Annie’s long-suffering husband Fred. I have been hearing about him for years. Great guy, and he an Annie have a hell of a story themselves.)
Ted was touched to see so many old friends, and there was genuine warmth in the air, and the conversations were fascinating. I saw Fred Rainbow, with whom I have been corresponding since 1979 at the Naval Institute (worth a story sometime) and people embarked on other quests and crusades, including a guy who is creating a Cold War Gallery to go along with Gary Power’s Cold War Museum.
Anyway, Ted’s crusade of the moment is the creation of a Saint.
Of course, only God and the Church can do that, but I was intrigued since the prayer card for a Navy Chaplain named Vince Capodanno is on my refrigerator. I am not much for organized religion, but Vince was someone special. His Medal of Honor Citation speaks volumes about courage an sacrifice, and Father Capodanno paid the ultimate price.
The medal was awarded for actions in 1967 under with the 5th Marines in the Thang Binh District of the Que-Son Valley. Vince was with Company D, which was hit hard. By mid-morning in the fight, twenty-six Marines were dead and the situation was in doubt. Vince heard the reports and rushed to the sound of the guns with reinforcements from Company M.
The fighting was hand-to-hand. Vince went among the wounded and dying, giving last rites and taking care of his Marines. Wounded once in the face and suffering another wound that almost severed his hand, Father Capodanno moved to help a wounded corpsman only yards from an enemy machine gun. Vince died taking care of one of his men.
SECNAV Paul Ignatius awarded the MOH posthumously to Vince on January 7, 1969.
But that is not Ted’s quest- he is pressing for Vince to be recognized by the Roman Catholic Church as a Saint.
As you know, that is a long process, but from what I saw of Ted Bronson last night, that is just about the right sort of crusade for the World’s Greatest Naval Aviator.
Copyright 2012 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com