03 December 2010

Danger Zone


(Kelly McGillis as Intelligence Officer Charlie and Tom Cruise as Maverick in the Paramount blockbuster paean to the Fleet “Top Gun.” Photo Paramount Studios.)

It was another day in what passes as the danger zone of Washington teapot tempests. The WikiLeaks drama continued through the morning, the tax code debate was being framed on the Hill as either a no-brainer or class warfare, and Charlie Wrangle may actually get it this morning.

Still, it appears we are going to do the one thing that we do so well about the Continuing Crisis: kick the can down the road and pretend that there is no “Dead End” sign at junction we are passing.

Maybe it will be OK. I glanced at one of the two or three devices I carry to review the traffic from the night before. There was a SPOTREP report from the agent network from one of our outposts:

“Prospective Speaker Boehner is back to smoke at Ramparts. Needless to say I don't like the man. Our politics are different, but no matter what your stripes you have to ask: where was this man when Reagan and the two Bushes were racking up 9.2 trillion dollars of debt?  Let's call him "Johnny come lately."

I shook my head. Where are the statesmen? Later, I had to shut down the computer and head out. I rode with Jake out to a combined retirement-Change of Command ceremony at the center of the Naval Intelligence world. Bob is taking over from my pal Maverick, who has the greatest fighter-pilot crew-cut in the history of the Air Intelligence Community.

I rib him and say he is the second-greatest Fighter AI who ever walked Steel Beach, but there is no real competition for Maverick. I was a little ahead of him by year-group, and it was my fortune to serve with an outlaw squadron of misfits who drove the venerable F-4 Phantom from our mysterious base in Asia, aboard a fifty-year-old ship and wrung more cats-and-traps per cycle out of her two cats than the show-boats from back in the land of the Big Exchange could get out of four.

But we were less capable across the mission spectrum and Maverick arrived in the Fleet along with the super-slick F-14 Tomcat, which ensured Fleet Air Defense and could really win the outer air battle, flying from nuclear carriers that would leave old Ma Midway in their wake.

Anyway, Maverick is really larger than life. His ceremony featured three videos that flashed on the gigantic briefing screen in the Hoyer Auditorium in Historic Suitland, Maryland. The first featured Maverick as the CO of the Office of Naval Intelligence, talking about the mission. That was followed by a pulsing dynamic presentation of the Command and its components, and the men and women who have been fighting the Long War from the sea while the rest of us have been at the mall.

The ceremony itself was fantastic. The Three Star spoke about the exchange of authority, and received the salutes as Bob formally relieved Maverick. Clubber, a retired Captain and a contemporary, got a chance to roast Mav after that, as the ceremony transitioned to a retrospective on a 26-year career spend with enthusiasm and honor.

They bonged him symbolically ashore and he marched out past the sideboys without a backward glace. The master of ceremonies asked us to stay seated after the departure of the official party to watch another video, this one a montage of Mav’s life and times in the Navy, which coincided with the release of the movie Top Gun, and accounted for the swaggering days of pre-Tailhook Naval Aviation.

Mav had The Look, and the swagger that went with life in The Danger Zone. Larger than life itself, and a privilege to be part of it.

I wound up back at work after the ceremony, a hazard of my current occupation. Back in the Fleet, we would have gone straight to the O Club to continue the moment. There was a post-party in Old Town, and most of the side-boys were in attendance.

The agent network was active, since old habits die hard. Kimo texted me with SPOTREP, saying “Just back from Old Towne and a beer dinner with Mav, Clubber and the gang...we are a different breed...we are the Top Gun generation of Reagan's Revolution...we remember the 600 ship Navy and we know maritime OPINTEL...yet we have empowered this new 9/11 generation...who will bring them back to the core of the business: hard all-source analysis?”

I don’t know, I thought, but had a hankering wondered if the gang might still be there, and on impulse, fired up the Bluesmobile and roared down the GW Parkway to the Union Street Public House. A parking place opened up right in front, and the crowd was still going strong in the Oyster Bar private room on the first floor.

I knew most of the folks in the narrow room, remembering them as Lieutenants, though now they are the CDRs and CAPTs and running the show. I was intrigued and amazed to hear them speak of what they are doing and where they have been.

Then another text from the agent network from Ramparts across town:

“The Speaker has a 6 foot 6 -inch Secret Service dude clearing the way.  Subtle.  No private room available - stuck with the unwashed masses for now.  I seem to remember Cheney saying "deficits don't matter" but apparently now they do.  In the meantime these arrogant bastards are holding up a bill that would make Alzheimer's a national priority- because they want rich people to get richer.  In 1980, the top 1 percent had 17 percent of the wealth of this country.  Now they have 40 percent.  What part of this trend makes sense?  And why do people we love have to suffer for this political posturing.  I am thinking I need fake tan and a tortured view of the fact.”

I digested the text, wondering at how we are fiddling while Rome burns around us. Then I shrugged and got another white wine from the nice man in the equally white apron behind the mahogany bar. I talked to the young man who had been the Master of Ceremony, and handled the senior officers with such aplomb. I asked him what he was doing and where he was going.

“Back to the Teams. Going to deploy again in March.”

“How many times have you been deployed?” I asked. My part in the wars seemed so long ago.

“Dunno. I got commissioned just before 9/11, and I went with the SEALS right after intel school. Nine or ten? Long time. We had leaders at the beginning who were Cold War, and then the ones who were around after DESERT STORM.”

“Yeah,” I said over the din. “The ones who thought the ‘No Fly Zone’ in Iraq was a big deal, and things like DESERT FOX.” He nodded, with something that looked a little like contempt. I thought uncomfortably that I was speaking about yours truly. It is not about aircraft carriers for this generation, or at least not exclusively. They live in a very different danger zone, one that is much more personal, much more intimate.

I wondered about my son, and if he would go to the Teams after training, and if he would have the eyes that have seen so much in such a short amount of time.

The Crackberry buzzed in my pocket with an incoming SPOTREP:

"Future Speaker just left with blazer flipped over his shoulder; maximum prep points! As and Andover grad, I can spot the Dudes from a mile away! John-With an-H."

I guess we will all be seeing things we have not seen before. But some, a very small number, will see some things that no one ever should.

Copyright 2010 Vic Socotra
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