08 December 2002

Army-Navy

I checked the e-mail in the morning and noticed there was a note from the Assignments Officer- the Detailer- in Millington. I opened it and then closed it again, saving it as new. I would deal with that later. It used to be phone calls from the Bureau, and I just had one of those. This note was fairly benign and reasonable. It asked for my intentions and preferences for a change of station in 2004. I smiled. It was funny to be senior to the Detailer, who had always seemed to me to be the ancient face of the Bureau.

I got up and went out to the balcony and looked at the snow-covered ground of the apartment complex. The weekend stretched before me, filled with possibilities.

I was planning on catching the game at Army-Navy Clubhouse in Arlington. There is a bus to Philly for the truly hard-core fans, and for those of us who don't care quite that much, they provide a complementary lunch. Free hot-dogs, the nice fat Country Club ones, and a big vat of chili.

I drove over on Glebe road until brilliant blue sky. I contemplated putting the tops down, it was that nice. After I parked in the lot at the Clubwent downstairs and loaded up a plate and wandered in to what used to be the Men's Grill, when the County permitted us to discriminate like that. Some officious taxman came by a decade ago and informed the management that Arlington would be pleased to review the tax exemption for the golf course if the Club did not enter the 20th century, and the tradition was quietly jettisoned. I filled out a chit and handed it to the Guatemalan waitress and drank a Bud while I ate my chili-mounded hotdogs with a fork. I watched the camaraderie of some old soldiers and sailors. You know the kind of conversation- "Oh, Dawkins? Yeah, Pete was class of '47, last Heisman winner for Army...." A Navy alum was down in front by the big screen, not geriatric yet, and smoking a pleasant and intrusive cigar. He was very loud and doing pushups every time the! Mids scored. He was going to have sore arms by the time it was over.

It was a grand time, I wound up talking to a retired General, don't know who he was, about Korea and what he had done when he got there in '53. I asked him if he was Combat Arms, and he said "Of course, Field Artillery." Then he corrected himself. "And First Cavalry." I imagine he might have commanded the First, but we wound up talking about what it was like when he was a junior officer at the tail end of the Police Action on the Korean Peninsula. Korea was my tour with the Army, and has always been useful in helping to understand the big Green Machine.

I listened to the way it was then, blasted, no trees, with strict anti-fraternization rules to keep the hanguks (Koreans) and the Meguks (Americans) apart. He talked aboutthe major re-forestation effort that was made to bring the vegetation back.

In return, I told him what it was like to be in Pyongyang, on the wrong side of the Bridge of No Return, and we both commented on the news this week on how things had changed. The Times reported that Buddhist monks and Christian groups held hunger strikes near the U.S. Embassy all week, and while the riot police kept the demonstrators from the gates, they could not (or would not) stop the taxi drivers from honking their horns in protest about the acquittal of two American soldiers who crushed two Korean schoolgirls in an armored vehicle.

We didn't drive when I was assigned there. The word was that some of the ancient Aji-mas would throw themselves under the wheels of a car driven by an American to get the blood settlement money for their grandchildren. It was just simpler to take one of the ubiquitous black PX cabs. So what is happening now is a symptom of something else. One of the Korean candidates is even running for office on the platform that he will ensure the security of the North from us, for goodness sake. Neither of us could really grasp the magnitude of the change, captives of our respective times on the Peninsula.

And neither of us went to the academies of the Army and the Navy, so there was a certain benign indifference to the result. But everyone still gets into it. At the Pentagon the Academy bands would come down the week before, the sound deafening as it echoed off the smooth walls of the broad corridors. It is neat to watch human-scale people playing a game that I once did, not for money, but for the honor of their Schools. There was a sell-out crowd at Veteran's Field to watch the equivalent of two very good High School teams play football. Navy had one win on the season, and Army had none. It did not matter a bit. It really is a one-game season. When Navy beats army, the varsity gets a little gold star to sew atop the yellow "N" on their blue sweaters.

I may not have the same fervor as the alums about the Army-Navy Game, but I always remember that the office was a lot more comfortable the Monday after Navy won. Wherever the office happened to be located, even moving around in the Indian Ocean. ! I lost interest after the half and went on to the Exchange for wrapping paper and the Commissary for eggs and cigarettes. When I emerged from the store it was 58-12 and everyone including the mascot were playing for Navy to keep the score down.

When I got home, my real school was on TV on the hardcourt. Brent Mussbeger was talking into the microphone, outlining the Road to the Final Four. I haven't even got to the Outback Bowl yet. When we get to March the winter will be done. The featured game this afternoon was Michigan (0-5) against Duke (5-0).

I fled screaming into the parking lot and into my car and wound up a few minutes later in the cool darkness of the Courthouse Multi-plex theater across from the Arlington Jail. We had decided to watch the latest Bond flick, though by the time we got through the ads and the previews it was hard to remember what we had come to see. The film was a rollicking two hours of explosions, featuring a thin plot spun through the Axis of Evil. I liked Halle Berrie- My God, what a figure!- and Pierce Brosnan may be the definitive Bond since Connery started the franchise. The prominence of North Korea in the plot line was startling, and even though they had Chinese actors playing the Koreans they were suitably evil. I think we are starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel for enemies. Maybe it is too hard to get our arms around the terrorists, or too sterotypical for the overseas audience.

It was full dark when I emerged from the theater. thought it was appropriate to continue the theme of ambiguous outcomes of overseas wars and stopped for Vietnamese food on the way home. A friend suggested the Queen Bee restaurant in Clarendon, and I decided to try it.The temperature had dropped and the slush had changed state to glassy ice. The road conditions seemed to have the crowds pinned down in their houses. Despite the roads, the Clarendon Ballroom had some private function going on, the crowd was dressed retro and looked like there might be some Tango going on later. The restaurant next door featured a jungle motif and was mostly empty. The sping rolls were good, and the pork with vegetables was excellent. With the hotdogs for lunch, it was truly an All-American gastronomic day.

When I got home I opened up the e-mail from the Detailer again. I looked at it and shrugged and began to type:

"Steve, I am considering several things. What is available? My preferences are Colorado Springs or San Diego for location, always willing to consider something exotic. I think I have done everything in Washington it is possible to do in uniform.

Let me know what the options are. I look forward to working with you!"

I smiled. It was a little coy, but what the hell.

In the morning The Times reported that along with the Navy victory over Army, Louisiana voters have continued the 130-year tradition of electing Democratic Senators. President Bush's prestige is reported to be diminished. The next article says we will have forces fully deployed for war in the Gulf by January. Iraq has provided 12,000 pages of reports that states in excruciating detail that they have no weapons of mass destruction, the whole thing is just a colossal misunderstanding.

Like North Koreans with killer satellites in the Bond film.