| 10 November 2006 Veterans, Observed It is Veterans Day, observed, since we have an aversion to wasting a holiday on a Saturday when we would be off anyway. It is as good a day as any to salute the service of our military, and the sacrifice they have made. It is important to remember the source of this particular holiday, which is about the silencing of the guns at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918. It was the most colossal sequential event of carnage in the history of the species. At least it was for a few decades, until we figured out how to be more agile and lethal. I was sitting under some very large guns yesterday, and that came to mind with the remarks of a distinguished flag officer on the occasion of the retirement of an old shipmate. The sun glittered off the waters of the inner Norfolk harbor, and the folding chairs were set out of the vast teak decks of the USS Wisconsin. She is a memorial now, not an active warship, but she has not been sleeping long. She launched the first Tomahawk missiles toward targets deep in Iraq in the war over Kuwait. So near in time, and so separate in reality. It was a marvelous place for a celebration of a career. The Admiral kept it light, as was appropriate. He started his extensive remarks by observing that there was a distinct difference between a wake and a retirement. At the former, the honoree was not expected to rise to make a speech. The Admiral recounted my friend's accomplishments, four decades of service in 45 nations. The ships moved in and out of the harbor, commercial and military, and the gulls danced in the sky. There was a marvelous reception at a spacious house, impeccably decorated, deep in the Tidewater countryside where horses still look placidly over their fences at the two-lane road. The punch was concocted from a recipe popular at an Officer's Club that no longer exists in a SE Asian country that does. On one wall was a wedding portrait of the Veteran and his Bride, she radiant in white cascades of lace and chiffon, he tall in his gleaming white formal uniform with medals and sword. Their relation has deepened with time, and survived the vicissitudes of service to strengthen them both. It doesn't always work out that way, and I was tempted to drink the punch as we once had. But the long slog over bridges and down into tunnels loomed between me and Washington, and I bid farewell as the autumn sun lowered in the west. I do not have to tell you how awful the traffic was, since is the rule and not the exception. As the darkness enveloped me I had plenty of time to seek diversion from my dashboard. Listening to the radio, I was yanked from a reverie of the past to the uncomfortable present. I flipped through unfamiliar stations, country and talk and religious in format. I heard that Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller had gone very public with a dire prediction about the war on terror. As head of MI-5, the British internal security service, I assumed that her remarks had manifold purpose. She is a professional in the business, having cut her teeth on the Lockerbie bombing long ago. She is not a political appointee, and thus probably were the truth. Of course there were resource implications to what she said, and they doubtless were also intended to inoculate her agency against future failure. Even so, the facts appear stark. She said there are thirty active terror plots in the UK, and 1,200 active plotters in them. There are links through Pakistan direct to al Qaida. Her take is that is the next attacks inevitably will feature something unconventional and nasty. Britain first, I thought, then here. It makes perfect sense, considering the changes here. We have been talking for weeks about what the changes in Congress mean for personalities and budgets. Now the moment is here, and the change includes not only the House, but the Senate. That had been a concession by the Republican incumbent in Virginia while we celebrated, and the voices began to talk of who was next to fall from power. I lowered the window and let the cool wind blow over me. There is plenty of time for all that, though the days are getting shorter. I imagine the sun will rise in the east again, even so. Copyright 2006 Vic Socotra |