Vic Socotra

02 February 2009

The Old Razzle Dazzle

(USS Pearl Harbor at Nevada Point, Pearl Harbor)

Overslept. Stupid Super Bowl. Great game. Weird commericals. There was an edge to them that betrayed the unsettled times.

The Boss was great at halftime.

I stared blearily at the Blackberry on the desk, pressing the tiny buttons. The Government released three significant task orders just after midnight. The turn-around is precisely twelve days, less the hours I wasted sleeping. There is a new Executive Order stating plainly that government contractors must hire the incumbant personnel on any new contract. I sighed. At a stroke, contractors had just be granted the same tenure as real government employees, and now could sleep just as soundly, on the job or off.

I was cranky as I plowed through the morning detritus. An American firm claimed to have found the wreck of HMS Victory, an earlier incarnation of Nelson’s flagship. The firm is renowned for vacuuming the ocean floor for treasure, and there is a remarkable amount of it out there.

And other things. I put the memories aside, in the compartment of things I do not consider. Pirates captured a German ship, the latest in a series of bold hijackings in the waters around the Horn of Africa. The Russians are reported to be returning to the area after a long absence.

I wondered if they would anchor in Aden, the old Crown Colony at the tip of Yemen.

That is where USS Cole was nearly sunk a decade ago, and the memories of times before that crowded in.

God, it was a long time ago. I was brash then, as now, but the air was chestnut and the fighter-squadron/porn-star moustache was brown. I did not resemble a tired walrus.

I was waiting to appear on the wrong side of an old mahogany desk in a windowless building on the north shore of Pearl Harbor.

The Pacific Fleet Commander’s immediate staff had offices along the open gallery that faced the naval base. To the left, looking down, were the cranes that marked the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard. Directly across was the low bulk of Ford Island, with the control tower for the decommissioned airfield marking the middle distance.

To the right the spine of the Waianai Mountains beckoned in emerald and green-black patches.

The gentle breeze carried the scent of flowers and decomposing earth. It is a complex odor, rich as life and a constant reminder of the inevitable corruption of the flesh.

I waited in an outer office. A petty officer in whites sat behind the desk, the ante-room nearly as large as the office within.

Some grand things, and some less, had transpired in that office. This meeting would fit into the latter category. I knew the whole thing had been a mistake- initiative always is. They tell you one of the first lessons of the Naval service is not to volunteer for anything.

I should have listened. I wanted a cigarette, and tomorrow, I will tell you why the Assistant Chief of Staff had summoned me to his desk.

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