(The first race takes the jump in front of the Big Ten Tent at University Row. Photo Socotra) I was sitting next to K2 on the bus going out to Great Meadow for the Virginia Gold Cup. He has just returned from five weeks in Ukraine on behalf of the US Government, and he took […]

I am writing this on the 40th anniversary of the Fall of Saigon, one of the nadirs of a really bad decade that hadn’t even seen Jimmy Carter elected President yet. I have to get along to the Gold Cup festival today at Great Meadow, so I am writing ahead a bit. We were talking […]

(Motor Vessel M/V Mayaguez at anchor after being seized in May, 1975, by the Khmer Rouge maritime forces. Photo USAF). I was going to wrap up a brief commemoration of the end of the conflict that defined the mid-point of the American Century with an account of the Speech the Congressman made me give to […]

30 April 2015 is the day the city fell, and the Republic of South Vietnam was absorbed into the body of the invaders to the North. The Treaty was broken brazenly and North Vietnamese regulars supported by armor rolled toward the coast from the central highlands, cut the Republic in half, and then wheeled and […]

Dutch photographer Hubert van Es caught this image of the last helicopter to leave Saigon before the city fell. He stayed, and observed the transition. The helicopter could not accommodate all those that wished to depart, and van Es reported the ones who were left behind waited for hours, hoping for another to arrive and take […]

Over the weekend, I was preoccupied with the tire and the journey from Kilmarnock to Culpeper, and disappointed that the correct size tires- 235/50R19- were not in stock at the retail outlets in our hardy hamlet. That resulted in the decision-making tree that suggested the tires might have the 72 miles left on them if […]

I had a couple cups of coffee with my gracious hostess as my host slumbered. We looked out at the currents in the estuary- fish, she said- and watched the ravens swoop at the little birds that were hitting the feeder. A desultory chill rain was coming down, and I was itching to get rolling […]

Editor’s Note: I am in an undisclosed location on Virginia’s historic and lovely Northern Neck. I am working off the iPad and phone, and neither gives me much flexibility. I will have some observations about the trip, which will eventually follow the Historyland Highway, originally cut through the brush by the legendary planter King Carter […]

(Two of the cooler members in attendance at the Spring Red Tie Luncheon. Photo Socotra). The Spring Red Tie Luncheon was yesterday, one of the biennial events that gets all the old and new Spooks together to share a meal and catch up on the health of the organization Mac Showers founded almost thirty years […]

(Ike and Alan Dulles at the dedication of the Original Headquarters Building at Langley. Image CIA). OK- the big news of the night was that Heather went three-for-three, drove in two RBIs and had no errors. The Naturals of the Nature Conservatory, going head to head with the World Wildlife Fund, still went down by […]