(The pug nose of the mighty battship, IJN Mushashi. Less famous than her illustrious sister Yamato, she was sunk in the battle of the Leyte Gulf, the IJN attempt to defeat MacArthur’s landings in the Philippines. Photo Paul Allen). Yesterday, the news spread rapidly , first by Twitter, that Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen (and one […]

I am so over this winter thing. I can’t even believe it. We got up over 40 degrees yesterday, but today we are waiting for an icy sleet and rain to coat us in a sheet of ice. All that caused me to be at the computer most of the morning, and had a chance […]

After extricating the Panzer from the shelf of ice produced by the passage of the county snow plows, driving around the circular drive several times to break down the crusted ice, and then giving up to take refuge in front of a roaring fire, I contemplated life in winter. It was bad in Arlington, but […]

Koji Suohara is a staff writer for the Asahi Shumbun, a popular Tokyo newspaper. He gave me a jolt this morning when colleagues brought the matter of his most recent article to my attention. I did not need a jolt- I already had one in the darkness when the clock radio kicked on and a […]

It is still colder than crap and the snow stubbornly clings to the parking lot outside my dining room window. I was thinking about what a hoot it was yesterday, over at the Conservative Political Action Conference….well, I am still reeling from the experience. I would never, on my best day, have gone to a […]

Gentle Readers, As you know, of late, I have been taking an extended diversion of into the Pacific and the middle distance of history. It is comforting to go there, since we know the answers to all the looming questions of that titanic conflict. With the remarkable gift of the friendship and memory of a […]

(Lobby poster for the Bob Hope-Dorothy Lamour 1941 comedy about love and conscription. Image Paramount Pictures). I was looking out the window of the apartment at the western end of Big Pink, watching the sky dump another couple inches on the crusty white remains of the last storm. I am getting really tired of this […]

“I have often said that an intelligence officer has one task, one job, one mission. This is to tell his commander, his superior, today, what the [enemies] are going to do tomorrow. This is his job. If he doesn’t do this, then he’s failed.” – Captain Joseph J. Rochefort, USN I was having one of […]

(The former Naval Security Group Campus in Northwest Washington. Mac Showers worked here and lived nearby. Photo Naval Security Group). OK- I am going to beat it to death, but Van Dyke goaded me into it. Sorry in advance. This is about everything that came after the war, and the effort of Chester Nimitz to […]

(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 (JIC-POA), 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 […]