12 August 2003

Pied a Terre

Pied a terre is French, I think. Being an illiterate in multiple languages I always work in context and thought the phrase meant a "piece of earth." Like you would have a "piece of earth" in town. That was close enough for Government work, but I was informed recently that it actually means "a foot on the ground."

A footprint.

That is one of the things I have been puzzling about lately, and I will tell you why in a minute. Vicki Barker told me this morning that a British national of Indian extraction and two others were busted while attempting to import a shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile into the United States. The technical term is Man Portable Air Defense System, or MANPAD, but I am not going to get bogged down in acronym land. Nor will I bore you with the specifications of the particular system. This was purported to be an SA-18, a relatively advanced system of Russian design. They normally work with an infra-red seeker which allows the shooter to fire and forget, allowing the missile to acquire the hottest target in its field of view and home in on it. The more sensitive the seeker the better, and that drives the price. An SA-18 might go for around $40K. The ones al Qaida used against the Israeli charter jet in Kenya were an older version of the SA-18, the model SA-7. The seekers of these infernal machines rely on cooling for target acquisition and the old missiles had expired their shelf-life. Those might sell in the bargain basket at the front of the arms store for a couple thousand bucks.

This most recent sale was a set-up by the FBI, thankfully, and there were no actual weapons coming here. But the commentators this morning were moaning about how vulnerable our commercial airliners are, and helpfully pointed out several likely footprints for launch positions under the approach to Reagan National Airport here in Washington.

The commentators make me tired sometimes. So helpful. This particular idiot mentioned that military jets have countermeasures, flares that are ejected on warning to distract the missiles. Air Force One has them, too. We could equip our commercial air fleet with such counter-measures for only a million or so a copy. Like the airlines weren't going broke already and are looking for exciting new ways to hemorrhage cash. And speaking of airliners, Mohammar Qaddafy is supposed to send a letter to the UN accepting responsibility for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, and depositing a significant amount of cash in an account for the victims. The UN will release him from the sanctions imposed after the world body was presented the footprints of his complicity. Maybe they should grab the billions in the account and use it to equip airliners with defensive flares.

It is the nature of the business, attack and defend. You protect one vulnerability and other pops up. A knight in full plate armor meets the guy with the match-lock rifle. Presto! Change of equation! We increase baggage inspections or take off our shoes at the airport the Bad Guys will do something else. Like Anthrax, or the smallpox vulnerability that hasn't gone away. If I had a doctor I would go and start the vaccine program for both of them. Or like the computer worm Microsoft announced was perpetuating itself though all Windows systems. Nothing lasts forever, except for the memory of evil. I checked the list and discovered my version- that piece of crap Millenium Edition- was so awful that the hackers did not view it as a challenge. I'm OK. For now, anyway.

It is the anniversary of the building of the Berlin Wall, back in 1961. I remember it going up, and I remember it coming down. We baby boomers were right down front for the whole show. We talked about it extensively last night, the whole strange trip. I met my pal Steve over at the Flat Top Grill last night for a couple martinis. The Flat Top is convenient to the Orange Line of the Metro that runs out to Vienna where he lives. It was a dog day in August Washington, and with the vacations, Steve is the Acting Assistant Administrator for a whole Continent. It was pretty impressive and I whistled over an olive. If the office hadn't reorganized, I would be the Acting Acting Assistant Secretary for whatever it is I do.

We had a rollicking good time and were really thinking about having a third martini, just for he olives, of course. But we are of a certain age and have responsibilities. Well, Steve does, anyway. But we marveled at the times we had lived through to get where we are. "O tempore! O More!" which is Latin, I think, meaning "time for more."

Even the rock stars are getting to be old fogies. Mick Jagger is 60. Dan Fogleburg turns 52nd today, same age as me and the Acting Assistant Administrator. We are all turning to old farts these days, but I remember listening to Fogleburg's song Power of Gold real loud in my four-man stateroom on the USS Midway before going up to the 0-7 level on top of the Island for the daily ritual of Prime Ray Time. PRT was always around noon, flight schedule permitting, and we would bake under the blazing equatorial sun on the little open area in back of the square turret of the derelict gun-director. There were a couple dozen regulars in the sun worshipping crowd and this hobby seemed harmless. We competed to see how black we could get, George Hamilton being the gold (or bronze) standard of the perfect tan.

The ballet of men and machines would continue down on the flight deck, airplanes launching regularly off the two catapults on the bow. Midway only had the two of them, as old as she was, and with the wind down straight down the deck the jet blast swirled over the black deck and rolled boiling aft over the round-down. After several months of this we were inured to the noise and the crash of the water-break after the catapults fired. We just lay there on our towels on the steel and sizzled. Until one day something odd happened. The ship had to change course for some reason with an airplane on the catapult, engines running. The jet exhaust from the two J-79 engines rolled and swirled back against the skin of the island and then rose up, enveloping our little aerie in a sudden ascent to hundreds of degrees. It was a paralyzing, pain, abrupt and unexpected. It was impossible to breathe and our eyes bulged as we tried to cover our naked skin. If it had gone on much longer our eyes would have cooked like eggs.

Thankfully the ship fell off that course and the exhaust once more blew down the deck. The little group sat upright on our towels, hearts racing. And then we lay down again to submit to the sun. Nowadays we know that probably is not good for you, analogous to placing your palm flat on a hot griddle. But damn we looked good. I was looking at my chest in the mirror the other day. There is a mole that has changed its aspect, darkened. I think I will go get it checked out, if I can find a doctor, that is.

Which is the reason I am leaving my little footprint at the Department at the end of the month. It is an amicable parting, and it has been a wonderful experience being one of the Department’s Senior Executives. But personnel constraints dictated a temporary arrangement as a private government employee at a handsome rate of pay. But without the benefit package which includes health care. As a veteran, I can still go to the military hospitals and wait with the other retirees, but the active force comes first, as it should, and I don't have the time to wait. There is a company that is offering all of that, and it appears to be time after 27 years of Federal Service to strike out into the private sector and see how I fare. Something with health and dental coverage.

I am buying a little efficiency here in the building, just off the pool. It is a way to guarantee me a footprint in this town, close in and comfortable. I intend to equip it like a sailboat, with a Murphey Bed and a folding dining table, both of which having small footprints when stowed away, neat and shipshape. A small footprint, but one that is reliable and mine alone. No landlord to change their mind if I am gallivanting around the country. With no lawn and no shrubbery to mind, a simple turn of the key and I am gone when I want.

That leaves the question of The Winter. I will have to figure out a roosting place for the months of January through March, and am thinking a pied a terre near Santa Fe might work. Maybe with an Airstream trailer, the kind that looks like a B-29. I don't know about that yet, but there is no particular hurry once I get out of the footprint of the major target area downtown. I can figure that all out later.

It is, after all, a matter of one foot in front of the other.