Vic Socotra

29 January 2009

Freezing Rain

(Honor Guard at Arlington in the rain)

It froze again last night, all the water that had run off the Bluesmobile and onto the black asphalt is a neat white glaze, a natural process not unlike the making of an inverse holiday ham.

The studded cloves would be the dark chunks of road–slush that hardened and dropped from the wheel-wells of the cars that ventured out yesterday.

Or maybe that analogy is forced, and all wrong. I have recent acquaintance with that, and my throat is a little scratchy this morning because of it. The cold rain at Arlington Cemetery was penetrating the collar of my white shirt, trickling down the neck. My black corduroy jacket was soaking up the moisture nicely, and I kept the camera under the lapel in a vain attempt to keep the delicate circuitry from shorting out.

I was proud of the camera angles I had selected, and realized with mild shock once I got lined up, that I was standing on the grave of an Air Force officer I had worked with a decade ago.

He had eventually taken his own life, a sad tale, and there was a moment of vertigo in the gray-white mushy mist, surrounded by the honor guard and band. I almost missed the Chaplain’s benediction for Major General Alvin C. Weller, USA, USMA Class of 1933.

I was in the wrong funeral, wet to the skin, shivering, and headed for pneumonia or something awful. I heard cannons booming from somewhere else on the sprawling property, and that was undoubtedly where the Admiral was being laid to rest.

I wanted to get some pictures for the journal I edit, and that was the reason I was in the rain. The two processions had formed up in the parking lot of the Admin building, scheduled for the same time. The Bluesmobile, down at the heels though it might be, still looks powerfully official. I have re-installed a few antennae on the back deck, just for that look, and I was directed to a line of waiting vehicles.

Whether I was wrong or not, I could not dishonor the General, or his family, and stood to attention with stolid determination as the chill rain pattered down. I ran down the key warning signs that I missed in the misery: the flag with the two stars had been red, not blue; the horse behind the caisson had boots in the stirrups, turned rearward; there were altogether too many Army officers, and too few blue bridgecoats and white cap-covers.

Sometimes misery can overcome the simple ability to distinguish what should be plain. I suspect there is some of that going on right now, all around us.

I was too far away to hear all the words, and my mind drifted, as it always does when I am at attention. Common sense would tell you that the Federal Reserve cannot use its authority to create more than $1 trillion out of thin air, since last September alone and not stoke the fires of inflation. You don’t need a weatherman to tell you that winter rain is cold, and death is colder.

Someone else told me to go look at Japan’s problems after the bursting of their bubble. They could not end deflation with 0% interest rates, and that has been going on for more than a decade.

It is complex. The smart people are telling us that there is no way we will spend our way into hyperinflation, like the Weimar Republic or Zimbabwe. I am not smart enough to figure it out, and the resulting paralysis made me miss the ritual folding of the flag. The kids on the Honor Guard ignored the cold, and performed their duties with crisp precision.
The Chaplain remarked that General Weller had served the flag in life, and here, in death, the flag would serve him.

Cold and wet, the ritual still commands complete attention. The problem with a good camera line- I had to be a little off-center to the graveside because of the height of the monument to the Colonel who piloted the Command Module of Apollo 14- is that it gets you close to the firing party for the 21 gun salute.

Naturally, I knew it was coming, but I couldn’t help but jump when the seven rifles fired simultaneously, BANG!, pause, BANG!, pause, BANG!

Twenty-one.

Somewhere down the hill and around the gentle curves of the snow-covered white stones there were muffled echoes from the volley of other guns, dim enough not to startle. It was OK, I decided, wrong funeral or not.

In this place, you honor one, you honor all. I did make a mental note to pay more attention to the portents all around, whether the rain is freezing or not. You never can tell when they might mean something you can understand.

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