What just happened to the Joint Chiefs of Staff ought to make us very nervous. Really nervous. Sorry- the unexpected and untimely death of a peer officer caused a rupture in the carefully crafted Socotra Production Plan, which would have lurched back to the sawn of the modern Iranian Continuing Crisis. Something else happened this […]

BOHICA On Gonzo Station Gentle Readers, The odd events of the holiday season thirty-six years ago seem to resonate today. I think, on the whole, I prefer ancient crises to the ones of the moment since we know how it all turns out. Wait, this is still going on, five or six wars later, the […]

(Eager tourists gather around the US-3 Viking utility aircraft, the only airplane with the legs to fly to Diego Garcia, and hence, the only way off Gozo Station in 1979080. Needless to say, she was a very popular airplane. Photo USN). Gentle Readers, this is a day to cut the lawn at Refuge Farm and […]

December, 1979 I am not going to inflict the next episode of Nick on you this morning. In the process of getting from one thing to another, I ran across this ghostly note from a previous self. I scarcely recognize the young man. He was pretty full of himself. Well, that is what I think. […]

So, this has all been a hysterical week. There is so much going on in the circus that passes for our public life that it is quite enough to give one the vapors. Major topics among my little circle of associates included matters foreign and domestic. For record, I feel bad about the lion, but […]

I tell you, the Hostage Crisis is a gift that keeps on giving. At the time the Embassy in Tehran was over-run, the last to be captured Americans on that awful 4th of November were a team of CIA officers who locked themselves in a vault in order to burn and shred sensitive documents, knowing […]

I am on my way to other things, this morning, and am going to leave you with the sixth installment of the Nick Danger saga from the Indian Ocean. Of note, the thing that got me sidetracked was an earnest discussion of the nature of the imperative driving Israel’s options in dealing with the rising […]

We didn’t know then what we know now, thank goodness, else we might not have kept bumbling forward. There was a distinct wave of energy and purpose about what we were doing, at least in the beginning, when it appeared we might actually do something rash, Carter Administration or no. By now in the parallel […]

(Blindfolded US captives at the Embassy in Tehran, Iran, 1979. You would think if there was a time to go to General Quarters, this would be it. Instead we seem to be sleepwalking through all sorts of stuff that is really important. I am not going to go off on the Iran Nuclear Talks, the […]

(Iranian militants storm the US Embassy in Tehran, Nov. 4th, 1979. In years previous, the Marine Guard in Santo Domingo stood off violent protesters and were awarded medals. In Tehran, they were directed to stand down. Image courtesy Getty Images. Right reserved). In the parallel universe of CV-41, steaming post haste for the North Arabian […]