Vic Socotra – Page 231

January 7, 2020 Vic Socotra

Swamp Postcard: Special Terror Edition

So, we are back, if we ever left, and the turnkeys who run the asylum here by the Potomac are back, with impeachment to roll out on the Hill at mid-week. Of course, given the lively nature of attempting to overthrow the US Government, there are been a lot of changes. 40 years ago I […]

January 7, 2020 Vic Socotra

Point Loma: The Right Stuff

Gene Kranz, NASA Mission Control Flight Director How would you like to get this ass-chewing? “Spaceflight will never tolerate carelessness, incapacity, and neglect. Somewhere, somehow, we screwed up. It could have been in design, build, or test. Whatever it was, we should have caught it. We were too gung ho about the schedule and we […]

January 5, 2020 Vic Socotra

Arrian: Iranian Escalation

There’s a strange fascination in warfare with the idea of killing the enemy’s leader. We often hear talk that: “if General X” (Sultan/Pharoah/King – pick you character in history) was killed, the war would end (or never take place). The favorite such figure is Hitler; if only he’d been killed, the war would never have […]

December 31, 2019 Vic Socotra

Swamp Postcard: Special 2020 Edition

This is a big one. I was trying to figure out the concept of blogging, those 20 years ago with the dread Y2K event coming that would do all sorts of terrible things. They didn’t, but a whole lot of other things did. Everyone is doing the events of 2019 in list and retrospectives. I […]

December 30, 2019 Vic Socotra

Point Loma: On Writing [1]

Charles Krauthammer Some people transcend time and space – here’s one. It is a little around a year and a half from his passing, which still is a national tragedy. I miss this man and his common sense genius greatly. He was such a fixture on Fox News and in our lives. I always made […]

December 29, 2019 Vic Socotra

Arrian: Xi Jinping and Titus Livy

The philosopher David Hume wrote that: “Nothing appears more surprising to those, who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few; and the implicit submission, with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers. When we enquire by what […]

December 27, 2019 Vic Socotra

Life & Island Times: My Brother in Arms

27 December 2019 Author’s Note:This was penned by a friend, a fellow motorcycle rider and former USMC F4 pilot during the Vietnam era who flew many of the aerial scenes in the movie The Great Santini. Augustus Fitch has appeared under fictional aliases in my former no-shit two wheeled sea stories. – Marlow Wednesday, March […]

December 25, 2019 Vic Socotra

Point Loma: Roll On

This is a Christmas Story, I promise… So why am I, a quasi-Naval Aviator and Intel professional writing about trucking? The writer’s muse is a horny bitch without mercy, and she strikes without warning. I am at her bidding, so here goes… Driving big trucks is a lot of fun. I got my start when […]

December 24, 2019 Vic Socotra

Point Loma: Mayhem, Like Meigs

Editor’s Note: Christmas Eve and the hope for peace, and memories of The Long War. – Vic 24 December 2019 Mayhem, Like Meigs I’ve written about the air war during Desert Storm, now I will bookend it with my recollections of the ground war and the almost 20-year aftermath – and how it has come […]

December 23, 2019 Vic Socotra

Arrian: The Problem with Ms Thunberg

Imagine someone discovered a cure for all childhood cancers, but it required killing every eagle on the planet. Would you choose eagles or children? Everyone seems to know environmental activist Greta Thunberg these days, a 16 year old (17 in January 2020) high school student. Ms Thunberg insists the world is on the brink, that […]

Author: Vic Socotra