01 February 2007
A Matter of Honor
It was cold, bitter cold for Washington, but the sun flew solo in the blue, and was doing its best to limn every branch and leaf with brilliance. A few forlorn patches of snow remained where there were perpetual shadows in the lee of the graceful Memorial Bridge as I swung up the long ceremonial drive into Arlington National Cemetery.
I drove right up to the guard, clad in heavy jacket and with the earflaps down on his hat against the chill. I announced that I was arriving for the Captain's funeral, and he began to direct me to the Visitor's Center. I listened patiently, though I know the way well, and expect that later, rather than sooner, I will be waiting silently out front myself.
The man we had come to honor was in no hurry. The Captain had journeyed down from New York by formal black hearse for this appointment at Arlington.
He was a remarkable man, and that is why the office of the Director of Naval Intelligence in four editions was there, plus the phalanx of active officers who support the incumbent, all of them in the long black formal Bridge Coats with the bright golden buttons.
Comrades form the past were there, too, from the reserve outfit that the Captain had commanded when the great conflict was over,
Gloria, the widow, was there. She knew Tony as The Admiral, since he carried that bearing all his life, if not the title, and so were a dozen family friends.
Arrangements for lunch up at Ft Myers Officer's Club had been made for after the ceremony, since it was bitter cold, and no one would linger long at the gravesite.
The retirees were in uniform, at the Captain's request. That is predicated on the ability to fit into them, of course, which I cannot, but honor is honor and I was there.
One of the former Directors dragged out his Service Dress Blues, the impressive double-breasted jacket and somber black trousers that is the business-suit uniform of the Naval Service. He looked the jacket, known as a ”blouse” carefully to ensure there was no moth damage.
The jacket was in fine shape, ready to take the rows of bright ribbons and gleaming badge of the Joint Staff that signifies service at the highest level of the military establishment.
Unfortunately, the trousers were completely missing. He recalled wearing them perhaps five years previously, but between the dry-cleaner, the moths and the seasons, they were gone. His wife told him not to worry. His formal trousers would match suitably, and the only reason she had been keeping the jacket was to have for his funeral. She assured him that she would have the bottom half of the casket kept closed, so no one would notice that he was sans pantalons.
The departed Captain was a graduate of St. John's University Law School and had worked under hard-charging prosecutor Tom Dewey. He was an expert on Sicily, and spoke several of the dialects. He left the office of special DA right after Pearl Harbor to join the THIRD Naval District, and was swept up in the biggest plan on the table: enlisting the support of the Mob to secure the waterfront against the Nazi threat.
Worse, the U-boats were sinking ship in the approaches to the harbor, and they were not going away. The working theory was that the submarines were being re-supplied by fishing boats operating from New Jersey and Long Island. The situation was dire, more dangerous than we can imagine now.
The Germans were sinking ships faster than America could build them, and Britain was alone. If the trend continued, the last bastion in Europe could fall.
The situation called for desperate measures. Naval Intelligence was not going to try to turn a few low-level gangsters. They were going to go right to the top, and get the gang leadership to support the war effort.
It was an operation as sensitive as it was successful. The waterfront was sealed up without violence. German saboteurs were arrested. The Five Families lived up to their commitment to support the Navy. As time progressed, the Captain was provided with contact information on occupied territory, and was landed behind the lines in Sicily to prepare the ground for invasion.
In short, he was a hero, and he lived long enough that most of his comrades had gone before. It was up to us to honor him in his last mission under these bottomless blue skies.
I was taking pictures, as is my habit at these affairs, and captured the images of the mourners, and the crisp and professional motions of the Navy pallbearers and the ranks of the official escort.
The Navy Department does what it can to send its heroes to their rest. It is about honor, after all. I wondered about that, standing off to the side, since the people with whom he dealt on the waterfront have a code that is at least as strict as ours.
A couple not associated with the Captain's family were attired in black. Perhaps they were from the funeral home back in New York, I mused. They had been standing off to the side, and nodded formally to me as I parked the Mercedes, top down, in the line at the curb. The nod was almost a salute.
I was standing next to them, trying to get the light right on the shot as the honor guard folded the flag from the coffin in its triangle of rest.
Standing as close as I was, I might have been the only one to hear the soft chiming of the man in black's cell phone. It was a curious ring tone, and I had heard it before, a song from somewhere else. He removed it from his pocket and glanced at the face of the phone. He considered it significant enough to take the call, even as the Lord's Prayer was being said.
He moved off silently and unobtrusively to murmur in private.
The ceremony was brief, due to the cold, and we left the Captain alone for the grave detail after the sailors marched off. So did the official party, heading back to the Pentagon, and the family for the reception at the Officer's Club. I had a meeting in the wilds of Reston, and walked to the car, deciding to leave the top down on the car, damn the breeze. Life is for living.
As I got in the car, I watched one of the Admirals and his wife walk down the low hill. They were headed toward the memorial to those of us who died in the attack on the Pentagon, whose gray bulk looms across the road. Those that rest nearby died on watch, on his watch, and the Admiral and his wife have taken the dead and their families as part of their family. It is a matter of honor.
It occurred to me, as I started the engine on the car, that the ring tone on the man in black's phone had chimed with the opening notes of an old song I used to hear in Naples.
As I drove off, I saw him and his companion standing at the grave alone. I realized that respect was being paid discretely from across the years, from another group with strong family values and a commitment to their own sort of honor.
The Captain would have understood.
Copyright 2007 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com