Author: Vic Socotra

When Time Stood Still

I had a great little story line going for yesterday’s Daily. It had everything, or would have, if I hadn’t spent the morning at the Culpeper branch of the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles office, on the left just off Lover’s Lane. They work miracles there- they can actually make time stop. Virginia is for […]

D-Day and Midway

I was sitting with Admiral Mac nearly a decade ago at the Willow Bar. Life was good. We were all alive. It was the night on the eve of the Battle of Midway, the Navy’s greatest triumph. I was embarrassed the significance of the date did not come up, and that was sort of strange, […]

Swamp Postcard: London Edition

This has been a busy week for the amateur historians out there. The decisive battle at Midway began on the 4th, ending on the 7th. Two years later, Allied Forces made a bold gamble when Ike looked at the skies on June 5th, and decided the largest amphibious operation in history- and perhaps the most […]

With the Golden Pelicans, 1942

(The crew of the PBY Catalina that sighted the Japanese fleet on the eve of the Battle of Midway). All the ceremonies surrounding the anniversary of the Battle of Midway are kicking off today. The vast distances involved meant that the epic struggle would play out over a week. In the parlance of today’s warfighters, […]

Arrias: Iran – To Deter

“Thrice armed is he who has a quarrel just, But four times is he who gets his blow in fust” So went a little piece of doggerel in the early days of World War I (actually from an American several decades earlier) as the Royal Navy and the German Navy squared off against each other. […]

Life & Island Times: Voices We Should Hear

Sometimes our brains can hear voices that don’t exist as soundwaves. These voices are as old as the mountains and as deep as the seas. Only our subconsciousness hears them at first. For many of us during most, if not all, of our lives, they are inaudible whispers in our ears. Upon first hearing them, […]

Bad Hair Day

I was up way early- a little before 0400- and resigned myself to watching some of last night’s repeats on the flat-screen until the new programming started for the day. I assumed I was going to go back to bed, so I poured a little toddy to un-angrify the blood, quoting the immortal baseball star […]

Big Ag

We are not Big Ag down here, but we pride ourselves on being farm-to-table kind of people. This looks like a poor growing season, though the Russians have brought in the first honey of the year, and the chickens and turkeys seem enthusiastic in the morning. That enthusiasm is not universal. The buzzards have moved […]

Swamp Postcard: After the Intermission

It was a short break between dramas here in the Swamp. I would have thought that after three years everyone would want a bit of a break. I guess not. Two new parallel but completely opposed investigations are underway: Chairman Nadler subpoenaed everyone in the neighborhood around Big Pink to see if we know anything- […]