I took a sip of chardonnay. Peter was pouring a very nice vintage, a hint of fruit but dry, without anything that seemed syrupy like canned pears.   I looked over at the Admiral in wonder. He had just described the entire intelligence staff that went forward with Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz. Captain Eddie […]

(A bad pie.)    “So what was it like going forward?” I asked the Admiral. “Leaving Hawaii must have been a change.”   “Well, yes it was, but Admiral Nimitz wanted to lead from the front. I got Eddie Layton, the Fleet Intelligence Officer, to let me pick the four best analysts at JICPOA and […]

(SeaBees put the fields up fast. A company street at Isley Field, 1944. Air Force Photo.)   Mac told me that they arrived on Guam in January 1945. Hal McCullough had been flying high-altitude missions against Toyko for weeks, and Bill McCullough was de-arming the Super Forts as they returned, and servicing the automatic gun […]

(Jasper Holmes. Image: Naval Security Group via U.S. Submarine Veterans.) He was called back to active service as tensions rose in the Pacific. His natural aptitude brought him to FRUPAC and the Estimates Section, where his experience as a line officer would be best used to interpret what the code-breakers were producing. The alliance between […]

(Cocktail napkin note from intense discussion with the Admiral. Photo Socotra)   I don’t think Lizzie or Meghan knew the details about the spy swap. Didn’t matter; I was not privy to the nitty-gritty either, and certainly the Admiral didn’t know. He was just back from the Outer Banks and a week with his family […]

(World Headquarters, Sococtra Enterprises LLC) I was trying to stay in touch with a game in which nothing happened for 72 minutes while reviewing resumes in a teleconference. It was surreal. Then the Spanish scored in the 72nd minute and life continued to go on while some of us wanted to run out in the […]

(The Federalist, now known as The Federalist Papers. Photo wikicommons)   There is a high-pressure cell sitting on us as heavy as a Dutchman’s keister, and it is as reluctant to leave as a drunk at the bar. It will be 104 degrees again today, so it is only natural that we seek diversion. I […]

(Crochet bikini, sans wearer)   I managed to review a few dozen resumes at poolside yesterday, already feeling the remorse of the end of the holiday. As the afternoon deepened and the temperature continued to soar toward triple digits, the words on the paper began to dissolve with the perspiration that trickled down my torso. […]

I had one of those amazing weekends, and I hope you did, too. It was an intensely introspective holiday, and I read the Declaration of the Founders with a weather eye to the future and I labored on some stuff from the office that could be done while still in motion.   Behind it all, […]

  I am getting up at the Farm to the sound of a distant train, rolling with freight, holiday or no, down the tracks of the former Alexandria and Orange Railroad that my ancestors helped build. There is the sound of cattle lowing from the farm adjacent, and the clatter of ravens under clear blue […]