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 […]

December 22, 2019 Vic Socotra

Life & Island Times: Honor Flight 42

Author’s Note: After a long break in the tales of my long ago road travels in the southern building trades here is something new. – Marlow December 22 2019 Honor Flight 42 Shipmates and I have funded in the past several Navy veterans’ honor flights, helped other honorees fly off and celebrated their trips at […]

December 21, 2019 Vic Socotra

Arrian: The Non-Nation of Afghanistan

The recent Washington Post (WP) expose on Afghanistan tells a hard tale: more than 2,300 US soldiers killed, another 1,100 Allied soldiers, some 3,400 US contractors, and some 150,000 Afghans (including some 42,000 Taliban) killed, and a bill of almost $1 trillion dollars to DOD. The Institute for Spending Reform estimates that Afghanistan has cost […]

December 20, 2019 Vic Socotra

Swamp Postcard: Impeachment on the Potomac

Well, ‘Tis the season, right? I have no idea where the time went. Almost Christmas; huge political circus going on, which has been swelling like discolored fruit for nearly three years. Well, you can’t say it has not been fun. Boeing continued it’s horrible, no good, very bad day this morning. America’s heavy space-lift capability […]

December 19, 2019 Vic Socotra

Point Loma: The Quarterdeck

The Quarterdeck No one who worked in the Pentagon on 9/11 thought that war would blaze itself into their lives that bright and lovely Tuesday morning. And I’m pretty sure that no one at NAS Pensacola had any idea of what was going to happen to them last week. And now we learn that it […]

December 12, 2019 Vic Socotra

Swamp Postcard: Jingle Bells on the Tidal Basin

Jingle Bells on the Tidal Basin Wild times in the Swamp this week. I would attempt an analysis of it, but why bother. I am shellshocked and think I might hear silver bells… Having a wonderful time- wish you were here!

December 10, 2019 Vic Socotra

The “Parker Ranch” and a POW Story

Editor’s Note: Our Peripatetic Correspondent Mules is back in the Gentle Islands with his bride for Pearl Harbor Day, and went on to The Big Island of Hawaii. For those of us who lived on Oahu, it was a magical time. Even better to see it again through new eyes. There are more stories from […]