05 March 2003

Limbo

I was the first one in the office yesterday. I waved my pass at the keypad next to the door and it popped open. I walked in precisely at seven, late by Pentagon standards, and walked back and opened my office and fired up the computer. There is no burn bag under my desk, since there is no classified material in my in-basket.

The Chief of Staff showed up at 7:20 and dropped off my morning folder with the briefing and the locator list. The cover had a blue sheet on it that read "Deputy Assistant Secretary Socotra" on the front. Bold as brass, it was, and the enormity of the day began to sweep over me. We had an early session with the Assistant Secretary, and I saw that I could do it. I kept my green government notebook at my side, the one with the red faux leather cover the parachute riggers made for me a lifetime ago on a ship far away. It was a welcome link to a time when I knew what I was doing. But I wrote and I wrote, taking strange notes about people I did not know at the Center for Disease Control and the National Institute for Health.

But as the morning rolled on I felt like I could do this job, though it is going to take some time to pick up the nuance and the rhythm of the office. It is a growing concern, chartered by the Congress in legislation a couple years back. A dynamic little organization with the mission of responding to public health emergencies. Right now we are concentrating on the specter of biological terror, ramping up with the tension that accompanies the rumors of war overseas.

The Assistant Secretary had a nine o'clock with the whole office in attendance. I was introduced to them as the deputy-and the day slid into meeting after meeting. I saw my role. I was going to take notes and ride actions so the Assistant Secretary can go about his day, identifying fires to put out and then I would douse them for him. Next to me was a friendly guy with massive shoulders and a couple phones and a Personal Data Assistant on his belt. He had been a New York City fireman and was fresh back from a stint with the team that provided services to the Governor of Rhode Island after the nightclub fire. The 98th person died there a day ago, succumbed to horrible burns. She had been very beautiful, he said. And there would be more deaths to come among the 32 people still in intensive care.

The office responds to things like that, activating medical teams to surge to disasters. It is grim and exciting stuff. One staff officer was down to assist in the identification of the Columbia astronauts. I was rolling along through the day, trying to figure out names and faces and how the office e-mail works. I called my old office to check in, see how the personnel issues were coming. I was told there was a meeting between my supervisor and Executive Director of the Community a two, and between meetings on the sixth floor of the Humphrey Building I got a call back.

I was told that the ExDir was in high dudgeon, and that he had told my boss that if I wasn't at my desk this morning I would, in his mind, be considered AWOL. Absent With Out Leave. That would be the first time since 1978 I had been in that status, and that had been a matter of misunderstanding, though some high drama went along with the episode. I'll tell you about it sometime, if you are interested. It was a colorful way to arrive in the Fleet, a place at least as strange as the Humphrey Building.

So there was that, and then a late afternoon meeting, and then two meetings after that. I emerged from the last one after six and sent a couple e-mails and grabbed my briefcase. Not knowing the commute from downtown, I saw the 14th street bridge backed up almost to South Capitol Street. I ducked up Maine Ave, crossed the Memorial Bridge and finally got home after seven. Interesting taste of how life is going to be for the next few years.

The upshot for this rainy morning is that I'm going up to the old office this morning and see if I can work out a compromise. The ExDir hasn't talked to the Deputy Director yet, and maybe this can all be papered over. The new office is eager to "go nuclear" in having their leadership call up and ask why my organization is not interested in protecting America from terrorist attack. Or something. Anyhow, that is what the morning looks like. I feel like a hostage, and hanging in limbo.

I may have to call the personnel people and see if I can move the retirement date up two months. Then I can just go on leave and say the hell with it. We'll see how it plays out. They want me back downtown. Limbo is no place to be on the eve of a war.