Editor’s Note: Here at Socotra House, we passed a significant milestone on Friday of last week. I had grown weary of toggling through a 600-odd page manuscript. It was time to whack it into more manageable chunks. I broke it chronologically into the Pacific War years of RADM Donald “Mac” Showers, then his time in […]

I haven’t written a Socotra piece for a long time. My usual excuse is time, actually a lack of it like all of the rest of us who labor in what Vic terms the Imperial City. The money is why we are here and a necessary blessing; the traffic, assholes and bureaucracy are the curse. […]

A Slight Break Our seventy-year-old president completed his 12-day tour of Asia as we slept, Mr. Trump hurtling east on Air Force One from the Philippine Islands, as they were quaintly called back in the day. I am not sure I could do it, and he has a couple years on me, but Joe Biden […]

(On the rim of Makalapa Crater at Pearl Harbor, this semi-permanent wooden structure was built in 1943 to house the Joint Intelligence Center Pacific Ocean Areas (JICPOA), where intelligence was collected, evaluated, and disseminated throughout World War II.) “The joint intelligence center is responsible for providing and producing the intelligence required to support the joint […]

We were at Willow, like duh, and the folks up and down the bar from the Amen Corner were a shifting lot, but the core group was mostly there. Left Coast Guy was talking to Old Jim. The Lovely Bea was snapping pictures, and Jon-no-H was standing in fashionable dishabille, his bow tie elegant but […]

Editor’s Note: Some moments at Willow pop up in memory. This one seemed appropriate to run today, the day before the real Veteran’s Day, but which we observe today so that much of the Federal Bureaucracy gets a three day weekend. – Vic (Mac, Left Coast Guy and Vic at Willow). Spring was lurking out […]

The New Normal? Good heavens. I had just shuffled out of my office on Sunday to catch a few minutes of football, once I was confident that any political statements had occurred. Instead, I was treated to the unfolding story of yet another brutal massacre of the innocent 26 parishioners- men, women and children- at […]

Editor’s Note: Japan-Gazer provides this particularly relevant analysis, since the President is on a whirlwind trip that passed through Japan and the Republic of Korea before arriving in Beijing. With the continuing crisis with North Korea, the alignment of Japanese domestic politics is a great aid in understanding our biggest regional ally. -Vic What Are […]

There have been discussions for seven decades about how we got clobbered at Pearl Harbor. Mac did not arrive there until February of 1943, so he could not comment authoritatively on what was true or not about the claim that Washington short-sheeted the Pacific Fleet Commander on decrypted Japanese messages tracking the mooring locations of […]

(The Usual Suspects at the Amen Corner of the Willow Bar. Mac took the picture). This is about mysteries- and personal Crusades. Mac had one- getting Joe Rochefort the Distinguished Service Medal. For VADM Earl Frank “Rex” Rectanus, it was to get justice for our only MIA intelligence officer from the Indo-china conflict. Mac had […]