People Against the Sea

 

I love it when I get up in the morning, trying to remember that I still need to find the thousands it will cost to get the Panzer back from the tender ministrations of the technical wizards at the Werkstatt Kompanie- and by the time I have consumed a pot of coffee and ingested my two eggs with cheese-topped mushrooms and onions with shredded tri-tip slow-cooked roast I am preparing to renounce my citizenship.

Thankfully, it is so freaking cold out west (17 below!) that I managed to climb right back down Maslow’s hierarchy of needs that I was able to think rationally that life with pavements dry in Arlington, and temperatures hanging above freezing that I consider life to be good. I can worry about self actualization later. You have to be alive to do that.

In fact it was good enough to take a look at the little blue volume that Old Jim pushed across the bar toward me at Willow last night. He stumbled across it while looking in his archives for something else, and thought I might find it interesting as a former practitioner of the maritime arts.

Of course, that is not true. We Spooks regarded the primary mission of the surface Navy as being the transportation of our butts from liberty port to liberty port- an enterprise much more typical of the Fleet of the late 1970s and 1980s. The rise of combat operations and increased threat of terrorism have changed all that. But one thing we never worried a great deal about was being cast adrift.

I thumbed through the blue volume with the exquisite it at the bar, noting the “ex libris” notation from 1974, the year after initial publication. The copy resting next to my computer is a first edition.

I got lost in it- it really is a compelling story. The Robertson Family was farming, and Dougal was challenged by one of the their twins to sail around the world. Farming is hard and sometimes thankless work, and that may be why former Merchant Sailor Dougal Robertson did. He sold the semi-functional family farm in rural Staffordshire, England. He took the cash and bought a 1922-vintage 43-foot wooden schooner named the Lucette in the lovely island of Malta, where the Royal Navy’s Med Squadron had once held sway.

The whole thing resonated powerfully with me. When Dougal was planning his adventure I was living on a 1906 Herreshoff Schooner named Neith in the harbor at Beverly, MA. She was a lovely boat with elegant lines, 54 feet LOA, named after the Egyptian Goddess of War and Hunting, and was thinking of several madcap maritime adventures that never came to pass.

Dougal followed through on his, though it is a cautionary tale that I am pleased to not have been aware of at the time. He brought the whole family along on the adventure: wife

Lynn, daughter Anne, son Douglas, and twin sons Neil and Sandy. They sailed through Gibraltar and across the Atlantic to the Caribbean over the next year and a half, and then on to the Panama Canal, where daughter Anne departed the cruise and they picked up a hippy kid named Robin who wanted to hitch-hike across the Pacific.

Bound for the Galapagos Islands, they cruised the exotic isles and then struck out for the Mid-Pacific but did not complete the voyage. On 15 June 1972, Lucette’s graceful hull was holed by a pod of killer whales and went down a couple hundred miles west of the Galapagos.

The six Souls On Board abandoned ship with the same alacrity the Lucette abandoned them. They took to an inflatable boat and a dingy then named Ednamair with enough water for ten days, a bag of onions, a few oranges and lemons, and some sweets.

Which is to say that they were going to die if they did not innovate. Dougal decided to rig an improvised sail and head for the Doldrums where they might collect rainwater in the slack air.

There is a commonality with the two other great stories of navigating open boats in survival situations. The Robertson’s situation continued to disintegrate as the inflatable boat ceased to be so, and forced the relocation of all six to the Ednamair. They survived 38 days by catching turtles, dorados and flying fish for sustenance.

At one point Lynn had to administer enemas with an aluminum tube ripped from a boarding ladder. The mixture she used was rainwater that had been captured in the hull of the dingy, but contaminated with turtle blood and offal. She knew that drinking the mixture would probably poison them, and innovation was the key to survival.

Actually, by the time a passing Japanese Merchant ship picked them up, they had more protein and water than when they started. It is an amazing story, and I am grateful to Jim for reminding me of it. The book was made into a movie, later, which I will look for on Netflix, or perhaps just watch Robert Redford’s new film on the same topic, “All is Lost.” He doesn’t speak much in the film, which is a relief after some of his other recent works.

Like I said, there is a commonality in sagas of being lost at sea: delusion, sunburn, open sores, flying fish blundering into the boat, rainsqualls and the like.

So, actually any of the three books I like best about the experience would suffice. Laura Hillenbrand wrote a marvelous and quite extraordinary tale of former Olympic sprinter Louie Zamperini. If you have not read it, you owe yourself an experience in how far down the hierarchy of needs a person can go and survive, Unbroken.

In the early months of World War II, Louie took off on a search mission for a lost plane out of O’Ahu. Somewhere over the Pacific, the engines on his bomber failed (it was a crappy plane, something we don’t hear much about from the Greatest Generation) and the airplane went into the ocean well short of Palmira Island. Adrift for weeks and across thousands of miles of westward sub-equatorial drift, Louie and two of his crew endured starvation, searing thirst, shark attacks, strafing runs from Japanese aircraft and a typhoon. They finally spotted land and a brief spurt of joy was swiftly replaced by horror that the island was in Japanese hands, and the adventure was only just beginning. Fabulous book and a reminder of the nature of the Empire of the Sun.

(Contemporary etching of the Mutiny onboard HMS Bounty).

But of course the story I have known about longest, and the one that may stand as the account of the greatest open-boat journey of all time was that commanded by CAPT William Bligh, late of her Majesty’s ship Bounty. I am not talking about the romance of Nordoff and Hall’s account of Men Against the Sea. I am talking about CAPT Bligh’s account: A Narrative of the Mutiny on board His Majesty’s Ship “Bounty”; And The Subsequent Voyage Of Part Of The Crew, In The Ship’s Boat,from Tofoa, One of the Friendly Islands, to Timor, a Dutch Settlement in the East Indies.

If you do not know about that one, you are in for an adventure in disbelief. Six weeks at sea in a 23-foot open boat, riding so low in the water that your hand on the gunwale gets wet from the waves action along the hull. 3.600 miles to cover before landfall, with complete reliance on a man whose name has come to be synonymous with the word tyrant.

(CAPT Bligh’s voyage, courtesy of Wikipedia).

Not altogether true, but that made the Mutiny that much sexier. If I had to make an voyage against the angry sea, that is who I would like to have in command. They say that Dougal Robertson could be a bit of a jerk, too, but all his family lived.

When you are lost at sea, that is a pretty good thing.

Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303

Watch Your Step

When my eyes blinked open in the pre-dawn, something was nagging in that part of memory that said: “You have to do something.”

It wasn’t the dream. That was about some ancient Navy stuff, nonsensical and non-threatening, and maybe triggered by the news that USS Forrestal (CV-59) was leaving Philadelphia for the 17-day drag to Texas to be chopped to pieces. Easy come, easy go, I guess.

I wonder who is going to find that case of Budweiser I left undisturbed behind the sheet-metal panel in the compartment 02-33-7?

I guess I would have been just as pleased if they just sunk America’s first supercarrier at sea to create an artificial reef where the fish could take custody of the beer.

(A lot of Forrestal sailors look like this guy these days. US Navy photo by Joseph Battista. Hat tip to Shipmate Dave for finding it!)

Anyway, padding down the passageway from the head- wait, was I still dreaming? Watch what you are doing. Do not trip on the Oriental rugs. Wait: there were no rugs in FID, and the bulkheads were gray, not eggshell white. I remembered that awkward moment when FID was pierside in Marseilles and I was walking briskly and buck-naked down the passageway from the shower in the buff- FID was a single-sex ship in those days- and realized someone was touring some guests who by the sound of it were not on French, but female.

Vive la Difference!

I started to rouse from the reverie with caffeine. That was it- gray machines! I had to take the car in early, and that there was a mystery in progress. I like mysteries, even tried to watch one when I got back from Uncle Julio’s last night- a totally separate story involving the massive power outage and attendant minor fire at Willow- but I am getting off track already.

I had been at the computer most of the day, having realized suddenly that there is apparently a “contact” button on the website that some foolish people have actually used. I had not checked that account in several months, had forgotten the password and all the other happy horseshit that goes along with big software roll-outs.

I am not completely unsympathetic to the problems with the Health Care computer programmers, you know. But there were 600 “You’ve got Gmail!” notes that suddenly popped out and there went the day. Another storm was rolling in- this one on the ragged edge of wintry mix. The rain was supposed to start at 1900 and continue through the morning, with the very real possibility that it would freeze to branches and roads and electrical wires and bring them all tumbling down and leave us all in the darkness.

So, the question of this morning was whether it was going to be a hockey rink outside, and if so, what would that do to the early delivery of the Panzer to the German mechanics, provided they were able to slide into work in the dark.

I pulled on a jacket and some shoes and went out on the patio. It was still raining, and the pavement looked wet but not with the sheen of ice.

OK: a go. I made the coffee, checked the email and discovered that Mr. Jay Carney had a completely rational explanation for why the Congressional Budget Office report saying that the health care law’s imposition was going to cause the loss of a couple million jobs and cost a couple times what we thought. He explained that it would permit “folks” to spend more time with their families.

Where I come from, that is the line used to explain why the Congressman or Secretary is resigning in disgrace, since I can’t imagine anything I would like to do less than stay at home with a spouse glaring daggers at me 24×7. But I guess it is all a matter of taste.

I vowed I would get back to why the EPA was going to ban woodstoves, or why they mandate low-flow showerheads that limit flow to 2.5 gallons per minute be hooked up to tankless water-heaters that only produce hot water with an outflow of more than 3 gallons per minute through the system.

I thought, as I walked down to the garage to get the Panzer fired up, that it would be easier if they just banned hot showers, you know?

And when I discovered to my growing horror on the walk back from the Dealership, a hot shower was going to be precisely what I was going to need when I got home, but that was gong to be a bit of a problem since the sidewalks had not been salted like the ones back at Big Pink, and I was going to be sliding along in the chill dank rain for much longer than I had thought. After the first decent slide, I realized I really had to watch my step.

Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303

Year of the Whores

 

OK, OK, it is probably a software glitch of some kind. It probably originated in some voice recognition program, or maybe just the “autocorrect” bug that bites me all the time.

It is not anything like the astonishingly inept roll-out of the Allegedly Affordable Care Act, and no one, to my knowledge, was actually harmed by the typo. But still, you have got to admire the accuracy of the gaffe.

“Gaffe” is Washington-speak for a horrendous event when someone- normally a politician- says something true. It is so uncommon that normally oleaginous careerists are pilloried ruthlessly. The powerful Majority Leader Senator Trent Lott said what he actually thought one time and had to resign his seat. Arguably, Mitt’s 47% comment might have cost him some critical momentum in what was a fairly tight race. And of course, our Vice President has a positive penchant for them, but everyone loves crazy Uncle Joe, the life of the party.

The Beeb doubtless was going for something different- I would hope it is the Chinese calendar’s Year of the Horse. That symbol replaced the old Year of the Snake at Chinese New Year last Friday.

Listening to the news of the latest storm that is bearing down on us, I think I would prefer being a snake to a horse. They are predicting freezing rain that will glaze the roads and sidewalks and burden the power lines and maybe leave us completely in the dark. The last winter that offered fun like this was in the late eighties- I forget which year- but there were many at the Pentagon in casts who refused to stay indoors to do their physical training and fell on the ice-slick pavement, breaking limbs.

Out in Fairfax County, it was possible to lace up your skates on the porch and skate across the lawn to the sidewalk and then skate down to the lake.

It was amazing. I am hoping that is not what is going to happen, but you never can tell. So forgive me for a little schadenfreude at the expense of the British Broadcasting Corporation this morning.

I have become enamored of horses lately, and it is not because of that heartwarming Budwieser commercial with the Clydesdale and the golden Labrador puppy. You know the cool thing about people born in the year of the horse: they make constant efforts in self improvement, and could often be seen in the Self Help section at Borders, back when book stores still existed somewhere other than Amazon.

According to Chinese lore, Horse people tend to be “energetic, bright, warm-hearted, intelligent and able.” They are clever, kind to others, and like to join in venture careers. Although they sometimes talk too much, they are cheerful, perceptive, talented, earthy but stubborn, and like the stimulation of crowd and public entertainment.

Here in Washington, of course, it is always the Year of the Snake, even if the players may come from other birth years. And I think the Beeb had it right- I have no opinion on the veracity of the Chinese calendar. But year of the Whores is certainly appropriate.

I am not going to launch off on some tirade about how career politicians share many of the same attributes as the practitioners of the Oldest Profession. As someone who has spent altogether too much time around the capital, I am in cheerful agreement with the assessment, and am a bit of a whore myself. It is thoroughly bi-partisan and simply the way the game is played here.

My favorite Member of Congress was a progressive Democrat, and I contributed real money to his abortive campaign for President. I sometimes wonder what would have happened if he had better parlayed his ethnic background into a position of real power, rather than getting nailed for some garden variety corruption back in his home state where he was the consolation Governor.

Actually, it occurs to me that no one in their right minds would actually go into politics anymore. What they have to do to generate the money to manage the campaigns makes prostitution seem positively honorable. And in fact, why should we taint a whole class of workers with something that has a negative connotation?

I much prefer the term “Tantric Engineer.” So, for the record, let’s correct the Beeb’s typo to reflect that more accurate and elegant phrase. I am sure people around the world will celebrate the Year of the Tantric Engineers.

Of course, people in the Year of the Snake had something going for them, and since it is always that year in DC, we can take advantage of it. Did you ever see a snake in a cast caused by falling on the ice?

Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303

The Twelfth Man

The Merchant

(A German First World War medal awarded to submariner Paul Konig Photo: the Telegraph and CHRISTOPHER PLEDGER).

If you like your weather predicted by large furry rodents, you are in luck this morning.

I hope you have put some money on the Super Bowl’s outcome as predicted by the Manatees of Florida, who are going with a five-year winning streak. I think I heard of some other top-notch prognosticator from the Animal Kingdom has chimed in as well. But to the point this morning, with another Polar Vortex storm scouring its way across Fly Over Country, I am prepared to believe Punxsutawney Phil.

He emerged from his Pennsylvania burrow at Gobbler’s Knob a couple hours ago and saw his shadow. Or at least we think he saw his shadow- this is all subject to interpretation by Phil’s entourage- and thus predicted six more weeks of winter.

Duh.

I have the car packed to go back up north, but got stuck on other matters once I knew it was going to stay cold. In general order, I had a sobering exchange with the professional group about leadership failure in the British Army writ large and in specific regarding the horror of the assault at Passchendaele in 1917. The battle was also known as the Third Battle of Ypres, or “Wipers,” as the Tommies of the day would have said before being drowned in the mud or blown to smithereens.

(The Flanders village of Passchendaele, before and after, 1917).

We batted around the unimaginable numbers of The Glorious Dead, a phrase that must have been said with a straight face a generation ago. Think of it, in just one of these bloodbaths over a half million wounded or killed outright in a campaign that lasted only from late October to December when even the dolts in command tired of feeding the meat-grinder.

That strand of discourse wandered off into the musing about Lance Corporal Hitler’s service during the battle, and how the whims of war let him live, and the fact that his Iron Cross First Class citation (our equivalent of the Silver Star) was submitted by a Jewish Staff Officer of the his regiment.

So, this morning was thoroughly shot with cautionary tales, and remember, we have four more years of the centennial to get through and we have not even approached The Guns of August.

I have no idea if we are going to see something like that happen between an increasingly cantankerous Japan and a rising China- with Uncle Sam getting dragged along for the ride in something similar to the slow-motion juggernaut that produced the maelstrom that destroyed the Old World and made inevitable the one in which we live.

So, aside from learning some new (and cautionary) fun facts about unimaginable horror, I ran across something else. This one comes from our cousins at The Daily Telegraph, and is another thing of which I was blissfully unaware when I rose late at the farm. If you prefer, the entire article by Jasper Copping is at:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-one/10612327/The-German-sailor-his-English-wife-and-WW1-voyage-that-won-him-the-Iron-Cross.html

It is a story that has everything. Action, danger, romance and high explosives.

(Paul and Kathleen Konig).

English-born Kathleen König and her husband Paul were living in Germany when the criminal stupidity broke out in August of 1914. Being proper Victorians, they vowed their love for one another and Kathleen made preparations to return to England for the duration of the conflict.

Paul was a merchant sailor (which probably accounts for the couple’s ability to handle separation- many Navy couples say the marriages were saved by deployments) but he found himself called to the most amazing story I had never heard about.

Here is what it was: The Kaiser’s ministers realized the blockade of Germany by the Royal Navy was crippling the war effort. A way had to be found to get around it and import raw materials from the non-combatant nations, namely the United States.

Accordingly, they constructed civilian merchant submarines to run the blockade. This is hardly new news- “merchant” subs for contraband are a stock in trade for the drug cartels these days, but the German version was truly a machine built to work in the world ocean. The subs were beamy and unarmed- they were designed to be “innocent” non-combatants. Paul’s sub was “213 feet long with a top speed of 15 knots on the surface and 7 knots while submerged.”

Paul was awarded his cross of iron for an amazing journey through the steel thicket of the Royal Navy. He called at the Port of Baltimore, a city with a large German population and was welcomed as a hero. He and the crew of the Deutschland were invited to tour the White House.

(The merchant submarine Deutschland of the Deutsche Ozean-Reederei, a subsidiary company of the North German Lloyd Shipping Company, 1916. Photo Hapag-Lloyd).

The dangers of conducting merchant operations in a theater of war were stark. The sister boat to Deutschland was sunk on its maiden voyage, with a loss of all hands.

The enterprising Germans were building six more of the merchant subs when the United States entered the war. The boats were converted to offensive platforms, the horror of the trenches continued, now with American kids flowing toward the West Front.

Like I said, this is gong to go on for a few more years, so get ready to learn more stuff we have forgotten, and re-learn some of the same brutal lessons about how things really work, and how the follies of the human heart can lead is so disastrously astray.

Paul survived the war, and was re-united with Kathleen, by the way, though they lived in their respective nations, visiting one another regularly for amicable conjugal relations. Paul died in 1933, and avoided seeing the next really big German mistake with the Lance Corporal.

Kathleen died ten years later, when the outcome of the war was very much in doubt, which is sort of the way I feel this morning.

(The Commander and men of the German trans-Atlantic blockade runner submarine “Deutschland” (POPPERFOTO)

Enough. I have to get back north. Like Punxsutawney Phil, I need to get prepared for the game and six more weeks of this crappy weather.

Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303

The Great Game

(Raj and Kim at the Willow Bar- both players in the Great Game).

So, one of my pals wrote this morning with the Weather Report. He said there was another of these goddamned winter storms coming this way. “Thirteenth named winter storm this year!”

I wrote him back and said that while I support a more robust snow-pack in the mountains, I am still incensed that the Weather Channel has taken to naming things that do not merit the honor. “Presumably to boost their ratings.” I am so done with this winter. I think they are calling this one is called “Maximus,” or something, which is just nonsense. I like naming the Hurricanes, now that they alternate by sex for fairness.

It is about weather, not ratings, right?

So, I can’t flee the City to the west without running into the front, which I have been thinking about for a while, and the way south is still clogged with abandoned cars in Atlanta and more to come. I sighed, and realized I might need some reading material. I ordered the Kindle editions of Max hasting’s new Catastrophe 1914 to see if there was any insight on how China and Japan could drag us unintended into something nasty, and a copy of Olivia Laing’s A trip to Echo Spring to explore why great writers are also great drunks.

I welcome the insight, not that I am either of those. In the pre-dawn darkness I tried to retrace my steps as I listened to the Polovtsian Dance movement from Borodin’s Prince Igor for some reason- maybe it is the fund drive this week on my classical music station that is playing the “Top 100 Classics,” like it was the countdown on Casey Kasem’s American Top 40.

I bought it (again) last night after I got home and was surprised to see how many copies of it I had already purchased in my iTunes library.

It had been a raucous last-Friday–of-the-month night. Old Jim was pissed off- it was to have been a double Cod Slider event for him. He has been grousing- I think fairly- that the disappearance from the Nosh bar menu was an unfortunate choice, due to its superb taste and texture.

Tracy specially ordered some cod just for him, due to his preference for the fish on Kate Jansen’s delicious mini rolls, served with just hot sauce the way he liked it.

There was some miscommunication between Jasper and Brett behind the bar and Robert in the kitchen. Tracy herself was in the kitchen slicing the beef. She popped out briefly to remark that she did two steamer rounds this time due to demand. Anyway, Jim thought the sliders would be out at five thirty and he got progressively more steamed as six thirty was coming around.

Ray from the White House was decompressing next to Jim. The Lovely Bea and Jon-Without breezed through for a quick drink before heading on to a dinner at some new place in Rosslyn, and John-With hung out with a red wine or two awaiting two Beef on Wecks “to go.”

Jim’s sliders arrived as he had paid his check and was going to stomp back up the street to the Fishbowl where he lives, the glass of the first-floor unit providing him a unique command post from which to observe on street life. A compromise was hastily arranged, and he took the sliders “to go,” just as Barrister Jerry grabbed my sandwich, which arrived courtesy of slim and elegant Dante.

It was his legal opinion that his order had been placed first, though I think I could have won on appeal, but I permitted him to grab the plate with the beef piled high on Kate’s Kummelweck rolls, crusted with fennel and sea-salt and topped with three deep-fried olives on a stick.

I told Jasper I would take the attorney’s sandwich when it came out, no problems, and somewhere in there Raj sidled up and told me he had a couple pals he wanted me to meet. We used to do business in my former existence, and though I am fairly militant about not using Willow for reasons of commerce, but I allowed as how I would be pleased to meet them before Buffalo night was done.

I had noted them in the corner before his arrival. Raj is starting his own Defense Contracting Business, and when I was working full time, I made it a point to use the power of my contract vehicle to secure “Facilities Clearances” for my small business partners. Yeah, sure, I am a hell of a guy, but it was almost purely self-interest. I figured meeting the Agency’s social goals and being compliant with the Director’s vision would help win work.

I was mostly right, and ran into all sorts of interesting things. Like, without a Facilities Clearance, small business can’t bid on work. You have to have one to get the work, but without the work you can’t bid. Catch frigging 22, you know? Only with the Government.

I figured out a way to use the overall Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) omnibus contract vehicle to secure the clearance, three of them, while I was still working, and it was been a win-win sort of thing. DIA likes me, the Smalls like me and it is no skin off my many-times broken nose.

Anyway, the pals Raj brought along were an interesting pair. One was wearing a pakol, one of those soft woolen Afghan men’s hats atop a dark hawk-like Pashtun visage. Handsome guy in that dark-Aryan way that evoked the troopers of Alexander who stayed behind in the Kush when the mayfly empire of the Great Macedonian collapsed after his early demise.

I am prepared these days just in case I meet any jihadis, and naturally I saw the pakol as I did my scan of the bar before sitting down next to Jim. Like General Mattis said, “Be professional, be polite, and have a plan to kill everyone you meet.”

Anyway, with all the confusion and comings and goings, I saw that Raj’s pals had gone outside to smoke, and I decided to get the meet-and-greet crap out of the way, and went out to join them.

Raj is a burly dark man with a shaven head and a two-day stubble on his chin. He grew up in a diplomatic family with his formative years spent at his father’s State Department posting in the Congo. We yammer in patois once there is enough Happy Hour White in our veins to bring my fluency up to his. A smaller man stood next to him, pale in comparison, and I knew him. His name is Kim, and he has a great story.

I don’t know if he took the name as a nom de guerre, but he has a great story. See, Kim is right out of Kipling’s Great Game, and if there is anyone who exemplifies the show-down between the Raj and the Czar, it is him.

Kim was born a Russian, and he is our age. After University in Moscow he did his service in Afghanistan in the long sad war the USSR fought there. Moreover, he was an officer of the spetsialnogo naznacheniya, the dreaded SPETSNAZ “special purpose forces.”

He survived that installment of the war, and got out of Russia with his family as things fell apart with the death of Communism, or actually its relocation here. His language skills and cultural experience were significant, and in the period after 9/11 he found himself back in Afghanistan, this time as a US citizen and government employee. He has been trying to get back in the war as a contractor since the drawdown ended his position.

He introduced me to the towering Pashtun, whose name was Ghairat and whose English was excellent. Both of them, said Raj, have TS SCI clearances, and are fluent in several languages, a talent highly useful to the mono-lingual Americans whose hubris thought they could put the Young Republicans in command in Kabul and live happily ever after.

We smoked and talked. Ghairat had a story, too. He had lived through the time of the Iran-Iraq War as an Afghan private soldier, and then the mire of the Russian War, and then decided to become an American in our edition. He proudly told me he was the 79th civilian ever awarded the Purple Heart by the ISAF Commander, David Petreaus.

We talked of wars won and lost, and I thought to myself, as I disengaged and threw the cigarette butt in the flowerpot by the door, that Great Americans come in all sorts of flavors, you know?

Back inside, Kate Jansen brought me the two boxes of Kummelweck rolls to go with the Culpeper tri-tip I am slow cooking to feed the people I foolishly invited over to trash the apartment tomorrow night while watching the Superbowl.

As I carried the boxes and my half-sandwich out to the Bluesmobile for the weave home, I passed Raj and the boys. Ghairat insisted on giving me a bear hug, and who could deny him?

Raj patted me on the shoulder, and said: “You know what his name means, don’t you?”

I shook my head. My Pashtun and Dari are for shit.

“It means bravery,” he said, and gave me a wink.

“Great Americans come in all flavors,” I said, and then made the right decision and disappeared into the darkness.

Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303