08 February 2008

Ancient Errors



Oh, the wires burned last night! Romney quit, which did not surprise me, and I was distracted, trying to dig myself out of an editorial hole. I should have been working on the Spring issue of the publication I produce as volunteer labor. Instead, I was cropping pictures of the first concrete that is going in the bottom of the pit across the street from Big Pink. The pale slabs will soon be hidden from daylight, and never see the sun again until the building that is yet to rise suffers its downfall. It is quite breathtaking, the scope of the underground structure, nearly the full block on Pershing Drive in length, and half the block deep.

Ah, Technology!

The new-construction photos were saved by the computer into a folder that shared all the work I have been trying to juggle of late. There is a picture of John McCain's monument, or rather the one erected to the Vietnamese gunners who shot him down over Hanoi. It sits next to a picture of American soldiers on a bridge, shooting at something unseen. A helicopter image is next, plunging into the sea, the pilot captured in mid-air as he abandons the aircraft in a long plunge to safety. Concrete is poured on waiting re-bar. A sleek PT boat sits ominously at a pier. Young men in camouflage fatigues gaze out at me with youthful bravado. I shake hands with the President of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, he looking jolly and me looking grave and disconcerted.

The pictures are all out of order, as they are in memory when they come unbidden. I look at each, and type in new file names: “Hanoi Trip, 1995,” “Tet File 1968,”   “Helicopter ditch, Operation Frequent Wind, 1975,” Affordable Housing Arlington-2008,”   “North Vietnamese PT boat, 1965” “Naval Intelligence Liaison Officers South Vietnam, 1969,” “Hanoi Trip 1995.”

The Mac computer algorithm then orders them alphabetically, which is worse. I clicked on “date modified,” and since I just had, the images then returned to the order in which they started. They jumped from effect to cause, to irrelevance to result. During the period 50,000 young Americans died, and perhaps a million Vietnamese, when all counted.

I could be wrong on that, but that is what the earnest diplomat told the delegation when we met in the building across from Uncle Ho's Tomb, seeking assistance in finding our lost boys. He asked for help in finding his.

I have to unscramble the threads on this one. I am trapped in Vietnam, editorially speaking, and was thinking that I might have to metaphorically shoot my way out. I was minding not my own business, or rather, someone else's, pounding a draft submission into shape for the Quarterly. The business of capturing other people's stories is a curious one. The demons arrive, digitally packaged. Some of them are very old demons, with the fine patina gained from years of handling. Others are of recent manufacture and are raw and brightly colored.

Each has a different perspective. All are filled with emotion. Some come with prices written in blood. Others, like mine, are administrative footnotes.

It is forty years since the great Tet Offensive of 1968; one would think that the memories would fade, but it is quite the reverse. It was about twenty years ago that Uncle Dick began to unwrap the horrors of his youth in the sky over Europe. It is this anniversary that is bringing out the memories of my colleagues who served in the Delta, and their older comrades who were there at the beginning, or managed the crisis that grew into the long War.

Controversy erupted over a labor years in the making at the National Security Agency at Fort Meade. Years ago, a no-holds barred account to the Spook War in SE Asia had been penned. It was highly classified, elegantly written, and brutally honest. It was intended to be a compendium of reference for the conduct of future wars, in the hopes that the lessons so expensive in the learning would be passed along to newer generations.

Whether that succeeded or not is a matter for the historians who have yet to enter high school. But time enough has passed for the secrets of long ago to no longer require protection. A small scale in a vault in Maryland had produced a declassified and quite breathtaking account of the Spook war in SE Asia there. The National Security Agency assigned one of their meager staff of historians to sort through the manuscript for declassification and release to the public who had paid for it all.

There were no particular surprises. The end was not in doubt, though there were details that had long passed into the realm of faith. I was astonished to see the emotion. One reader seemed ready to take up arms against Hanoi again, though I was informed crisply his service had been in staff positions far from the sound of the guns. The ones who actually saw combat had a more phlegmatic approach.

On the whole, they seemed to be happy to have survived, and their credibility in that regard appears unimpeachable.

I was becoming as eager to extricate myself from the conflict as the Nixon Administration. There was correspondence to answer, and thankfully, the Archbishop of Canterbury rode to my rescue.

Dr. Rowan Williams is the senior prelate of the Church of England. That is the institution that is- or was- the mother church to the Anglicans in North America, which until recently included Northern Virginia. I am not a co-celebrant with any of the parties involved in the schism, so I have simply watched in wonder as our local congregations have switched allegiance from Canterbury to Lagos, Nigeria, where there is a Bishop more in line with their beliefs.

He is apparently not surrendering to anything.

It appeals to my sense of the surreal that the little Church where George Washington was a vestryman, and which is surrounded by a graveyard full of confederate veterans should have adopted an African prelate. It becomes a little more clear with the fall-out from Dr. Williams homily this week. He believes the introduction of Sharia law to Britain will “help maintain social cohesion.”

Dr. Rowan apparently thinks of himself as a practical man, or what passes for one in these late days. He thinks it is unavoidable. He told Radio 4's “World At One” that Britain has to "face up to the fact" that some of its citizens do not relate to the British legal system. His remedy is straightforward and moderate. He suggests that Sharia Law might be applied marital disputes or financial matters.

“Constructive accommodation” is the term he coins for this particular version of the surrender of secular society, and shows you how far down the slippery slope we have come. “It is not as if we are bringing in an alien and rival system,” he told the interviewer, apparently with a straight face.

The Muslim Community's reaction was mixed. At least one senior cleric did not believe that the Archbishop had gone far enough.

It attracted a lot of the attention in my professional group, since there have been stirrings right here in America about such accommodations. Cab drivers in Minneapolis, home of this year's Republican Convention had announced that due to religious conviction, they would not carry inebriated passengers.

Inebriation is the only reason that cabs exist. Another Cabby invoked the concept of Sharia law after shooting a passenger. So far, the whole matter has been shouted down in outrage and disbelief. I don't know what will happen after the Convention this summer. The firestorm over this declaration has served to get me off the hook for other ancient errors.

It is good that there are such idiots in the world. It makes it so much safer for the rest of us. Unfortunately, if the Archbishop gets his way, it will not be for long.

Copyright 2008 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

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