11 November 2006

No-man's Land

We observed the holiday for the Vets yesterday, though the moment of silence will come and go in a few hours. Nine million soldiers dead, twenty-one million wounded, millions of civilians killed or dislocated, wrenched from their lives.

When the watches clicked around to eleven o'clock, there was the eerie sound of cheering from both sides of No-man's land.

I have a picture book that chronicles the history The pictures of the last American casualties of that morning are poignant beyond belief.

I took it out this morning, to help me remember. Twenty-six white crosses in a short line, helmets slung. One of their comrades, cigarette drooping from his mouth arranges one. The caption cannot be true, I thought, that they all died on that last morning.

They knew that peace was coming. Why did their officer not let them sleep in?

I could not, and rose, pacing. I substituted cooking for thought, in preparation for a tailgate party later in the day. I am ladling sautéed peppers and onions into foil packs that can be heated on the grill later, and preparing two kinds of bratwurst, one of them healthy and the other not.

The buns are restaurant-style, and I removed them from their packages to slice them down the side, and arranged some vegetables and dip in what could be an esthetically pleasing manner, should they arrive in the parking lot looking the same.

That should take care of my obligation. Being pre-cooked, even if the grill blows up, there will be something to eat.

It was easy to get downtown yesterday, since the Feds were off, and there was no mail. There was a function at the wonderful Bobby Vann's Steak House, and it was one to honor a minor dream, and a major change of life.

We were there from all over. Some of us are from Maryland, after all, though they now work out in the Northern Virginia snarl at Tysons Corner.

One of us secured employment right in the Bus Station, a job with benefits, and only the boss is left in the corner office with the curved glass that overlooks the sandstone Art Deco façade of the old Greyhound Terminal.

He thinks he will not be long for there, and the talk was of jobs and new beginnings. One of us was absorbed into the new company that is forming, and that is either smart or crazy.

The jury is still out on that. William, the massive bartender from Cameroon, was most solicitous. His great-grandfather fought for the French Empire in the trenches, and then returned home to wait for the reward of independence.

That took longer than he thought, by a generation.

It will not take nearly that long to figure out the changes that are coming to Washington. We talked about it because the implications are so vast. It threatens to downsize the big appropriations bills on which defense and homeland business depends. There is talk around town that Washington will come to earth once more, after the edgy bubble of the last four years.

Tendrils of the change run through New York, where John Bolten will be re-nominated to the Ambassadorship in which he has served on a “recess appointment.” He could not gain Senate confirmation, and the president will try again in the few weeks that remain in the life of this Republican Congress.

There is talk of his successor, who could come from Baghdad, and there was a note about the possibility from the Green Zone in the morning's mail. That has implications for some of us, ripples of the impact of the large rock that has splashed into the political pond.

Where the situation not so personal, it would be more entertaining. We need to cross the No-man's Land between the outgoing and the incoming legions before it is clear, and of course, we noted, there is great opportunity in change, and being non-partisan can be a better thing than it has been lately.

There was a Congressional staffer at the bar, who offered to take a picture of us, the last as an office group.

After we smiled, and the camera was handed back, I asked him which party he was affiliated with. He said he worked for the losers, and he too was going to be looking for work. It was a horrible thing, he said.

I looked at him, and replied, not unkindly, “If it was so important, why didn't you govern better? Did your boss think this was forever?”

Copyright 2006 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

Close Window