Category: DailySocotra

Eulogy

(Soviet Echo II-Class nuclear Guided Missile Submarine) I had been sweating my part of the eulogy. Not hard, but it was something I needed to do and hadn’t got to. The pressure had some off, and as you probably know I work better with a deadline staring me in the face. Well, the deadline is […]

The Day Before

So the snow of yesterday has gone. It was slushy for a few hours, but the streets were clear enough, even if people were panicked.   The City is getting a little punch-drunk with the white stuff. We normally get one or two snowfalls a season, and it is a matter of high emotion and […]

Not Enough Snow

(03 Feburary Snow at Tunnel Eight, Big Pink. Photo Socotra.) The snow kept up all night. When I got up I went straight to the balcony to judge the depth of the disaster and was impressed, though apprehensive. I could see black below the slush on Pershing Drive, and that meant cross-country travel might be […]

Operation Homecoming

(Operation Homecoming Flight Arrives at Clark AB, RP, 1973)   I looked morbidly at the on-line edition of the Times this morning. It is just turning gray. There is stuff to do this morning at the office, and I have guests coming from a long way off. I need to do something about that, but […]

Bullet Proof

  Something quite ordinary happened in the wake of the great mobilizations required to ensure victory over the Kaiser and the Fuhrer and the Commissars, and a sad compromise in Korea and a defeat in Vietnam.   Dick Nixon told us that “everything we knew about Vietnam was wrong,” except for the end of it. […]

A Dusting of Snow

(H.Ross Perot exchanges views with President George H.W. Bush with candidate Bill Clinton of Arkansas. AP Photo) The clouds have blown over, now beyond the Chesapeake to the wide ocean. The “dusting of snow” they predicted is six inches deep on the balcony.   Dusting, my sorry butt.   The moon is closer than usual […]

The Winter Soldier

(John Kerry testifies to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,   I don’t know if the war in SE Asia is over yet. I mean, the last WW II vet to have been president is around and still going strong. Still, I think the Vets from America’s war in Vietnam who could have been president have […]

Golden Rope

(Rear Admiral Walter Schlech presenting the golden aiguillette- The Rope- to his new Aide, LTJG John Kerry, 1970) It is said some places that you should never marry a woman who is worth less than $300 million dollars, like John Kerry.   There are others who respond that, regardless of gender, anyone who marries for […]

The War Within

ENS John Kerry, top, third from right, at NOB Norfolk, 1967. Official Navy photo.)   I am going to embark on a sensitive topic this morning. I know what Rex thought about Senator Kerry, and I know how the (now) Senior Senator from Massachusetts has been a burr under a lot of saddles since he […]

Make Love Not War

  “No event in American history is more misunderstood than the Vietnam War. It was misreported then, and it is misremembered now. Rarely have so many people been so wrong about so much. Never have the consequences of their misunderstanding been so tragic.” Richard Nixon, former President   In the latter part of Admiral Rex’s […]