Never was a weekend more gratefully welcomed
home...
OK, that may be a bit of an exaggeration. Never
is a strong word. Declarative. Final.
But still, the last week leading
into this weekend has been rough. There are a thousand dangling threads, loose
ends and action chits pending. And here am I, preparing to go on actual
leave! To another state! Half-way
across the ocean!
I mean,
really!
Long
nights trying to hammer flat the last few remnants of what
can
be done, prior to packing it in. Finally, a pass-down email to my temporary
relief. Follow-up here, track this down, don't neglect that. Floss every day.
I've had an actual nervous twitch in
my left eye for the last three days. Not that you'd notice, but I do. Which is
so
not me. Not to be dramatic, but I've cheated death a dozen times at least, and
left him high and dry on the curb, thumbing for a ride. Stared the beast in the
eye, just for the hell of it, to see who'd blink first. Done it all without the
merest backward glance. And I've never had a nervous twitch
before.
This stuff is making me old,
that and the passage of the years. The feeling that without me, it would all
fall apart - that the center could not hold. That mere anarchy would be loosed
upon the land.
Well, you get my
drift. The feeling that I'm
indispensable.
And you know what? I
finished that email, passed him the rose, hit "send" and drove off into the
sunset. The twitch was
gone.
Indispensable
man?
"The
graveyards are full of indispensable men." - Charles de
Gaulle
---------------------
A
new add to the blogroll - Rachel Ann , who has graced my comments box of
late, and blogs from Jerusalem, isn't afraid to ask hard questions, and doesn't
pretend to have all the answers. Well worth a look, and those who leave a word
or two in her comments boxes manage to do so from very different points of view
- for the most part doing so without the usual internet flamenwurfer action. You
should check her out, she's on the battle line.
-----------------------------------
Geez,
while I'm on about blogging from Israel, I should point out that I'm to attend
my very first Bar Mitzvah tomorrow - a neighbor kid, great family. Anyone wants
to drop me a comment or email about proper comportment (e.g., at exactly which
point may I wear the lampshade on my head? These things are
so
much clearer in the Navy...) and protocol please consider yourself
invited.
Took him and his extended
family on a tour of the USS Ronald W.
Reagan on base t'other day. And found out,
to my slack-jawed surprise, that she only has, in fact, three arresting wires...
Who approved this? Why wasn't I
consulted?
It's a great looking ship,
immaculately clean of course, as becomes a US naval
warship. C'est comme il
faut. But also brand-spanking new. The
warrant officer detailed to be our tour guide (G-4 Weapons) did an outstanding
job, and the Sailors all seemed genuinely happy to be there. Which, considering
the fact that had liberty in Peru and Rio on the way over, having left the fetid
lowlands of Norfolk for the elysian fields of Sandy Eggo, isn't that hard to
understand.
Part of the tour took us
up to the bridge, and suddenly I felt very old - there was no chart table
(electronic displays, you see) and no engine order telegraph (the ching-ching
thing tells the engineers how many RPMs to throttle up). All touch screens.
I'm not sure I'm entirely ready for
this - what if there is an electrical power failure? Imagined dialogue, from
A Night to
Remember, - "Madam, God himself could not
sink this ship!"
Oh, yeah? If you say
so,
Titanic-boy.
At
least they had an actual wheel for steering. Sadly, it looked like something
that Gilligan might have used on the SS
Minow
- a real carrier's wheel is big, daddy.
Huge.
I'm all about
size.
----------------------------
Had
a real down-head bit in this space that named the friends I've lost along the
way, and how they died, and how only one of the 25 died due to enemy action.
Tried to tie it into some point I was trying to make, but it felt exploitative
and wrong, and so it's gone. They were real people with heartbeats and blood
coursing through their veins, and friends of mine, and they had friends and
family and people who loved them and they deserve better than to be treated as
some sort of lesson or example.
So
that's
that.
-----------------------------
I've
made a promise to myself not to blog about the DNC Convention. I mean, there are
so many people all over that story, and in any case the conventions have just
become some sort of bizarre theatre. I didn't watch one minute of it live and
only those excerpts that CNN thought I simply
had
to
see.
Pah.
-----------------------------
A
frequent commenter, also in the bidness (or used to be), shared this story,
which I (being a generous person) will also share with
you:
Your latest
story about the practice air strike in Oman reminded me of
an exercise we did
with the Moroccan military
forces.
We
worked with them for about a week, flying a variety of missions, many
of which were low
level
strikes.
They
only had two or three low level routes available so we flew the
same routes several
times each day. This resulted in noisy jet aircraft
flying over the same
areas several times during the day and night. These were
fun routes to fly as
they ran along valleys through the Atlas Mountains and
out into some very
flat valleys and plains. The official floor was 200
feet AGL.
One
route had a turn point that used a dam at the end of a reservoir. I
was on the right
side, in combat spread, flying along the edge of the
reservoir which was
basically a fairly steep hill or
cliff.
I had
just checked my wingman's six when I turned forward and saw
movement off to my
right. I was eye level with a flat dirt yard in front of a
very rural residence
at the edge of a promontory and there were two boys about
10 and 15 years old
throwing rocks at me. I was close enough to clearly
see the anger in
their faces. The whole thing was over in a moment, but
I remember thinking
that they weren't leading me enough to have a chance
of hitting me.
Training,
eh?
I told
CVIC about that hazard when I got back and they adjusted that leg
of the route to hug
the other side of the
lake.
Getting
knocked down by some kids with rocks would be one of those new
call sign kind of
events.
There's good stuff out
there. Just got to figure out how to turn it into my fortune
:-)
-----------------------------
Goods
and others. At TOPGUN, when you debrief a flight, you set up categories of
things that the crews did well. These are called, "Goods." The things that
they've done not quite so well are not called "Bads," because no one wants to be
hung with the label of "bad." So instead we call them "Others." If it's not a
good, it's an other.
It may be that
one of the eye-twitch stressors in my life right now might
just
be that I'm within a couple of months of making a "whole rest of your life" kind
of decision. I've run this operational Navy gravy train about as far as it will
go, and the next set of orders I negotiate (or don't) will be the step-off point
for all that comes after. Things in play:
> Stay in Sandy Eggo, working
Navy. Goods - family is satisfied (God knows they've followed me around long
enough). Reliable source of stead income, the life to which I have become
accustomed. Others - no real growth opportunities. Nothing that will set me up
for the next big thing (whatever that might be).
> Branch out into bidness, maybe
get that MBA and someday, rule the world as a former Halliburton CEO. Goods -
the acclamation of my fellow citizens. Others - are you
kidding?
> Defense Attache route.
Goods - cocktails and hors d'oevres, civilized conversation, lovely
opportunities to schmooze with the sparkly set in Paris (in the springtime!).
Others - Karachi, Pakistan. Because you just don't
know.
> Head east, get a master's
degree (finally!). Work that into a follow-on job in blue, then one in a suit.
Goods - A well-trod path to upper middle class unexceptionalism. Others - A
well-trod path to upper middle class unexceptionalism. And the emancipation suit
from the Biscuit. Which I'd feel compelled to
fight.
----------------------
Can't
decide, so we're heading to Hawaii (thanks to all of you for your suggestions),
and hopefully it will all become clearer at the bottom of a mai-tai glass.
Remind me to save my
notes.
----------------------
Y'all
have a great weekend!
Posted @
06:56 PM
|
Posted in
""
|
Sendit
|
Credo
"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me." - John Paul Jones
"Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature" --George Bernard Shaw, "Ceasar and Cleopatra"
"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."--Friederich Nietzsche
