12 June 2009
 
Rescue Mission from Cubi Point

(Bloody Mary, the way the Major Liked it)
 
It is an interesting time, to be sure. The Senate just gave tobacco to the Food and Drug administration, which is a long way around the rose bush from the King of England four hundred years ago saying the brown rich weed from the New World was the Devil’s instrument, and attempted to ban it from Jolly Olde along with that pernicious coffee bean.
 
The original tobacco lobbyist, Sir Walter Raleigh, wound up locked in the White Tower about the issue, and we all know how that turned out.
 
One by one our freedoms seem to be slipping away, slowly most of the time, and then suddenly in a great rush as they are right now with supermajorities and good ideas that never would have been thought so in more normal circumstances. Oh well, tobacco today and something else tomorrow. All the things that used to be personal responsibilities are going to be taken care of by Washington.
 
I’ve worked here most of my adult life, and if any of you think that is a good idea, I will leave you to your illusions.
 
Regardless of how strange the changes are, no one is wasting this crisis as a time to turn things around, or on their heads.
 
You cannot say it is not interesting. “May you live in Interesting times,” is a Chinese Curse, as I recall. and another might be about . I had drinks with the Admiral last night, and we rambled through a lot of the history that got us here. 
 
The Admiral is working on an obit for a pal who just passed away. He was a Marine Major who wanted no ceremony and no monument. That is a problem in creating a suitable piece for the Quarterly rag I edit, and so there we were at the bar.
 
I was unprepared and scribbling on a cocktail napkin.
 
The Admiral is still engaged in everything, including the crisis. He showed me a letter expressing his concern about the Ford Motor Company, which was published a couple weeks ago in the Financial Times of London. Almost 90 years old, and he is still getting published internationally!
 
The Major had worked for Admiral when he was the Intelligence Officer of the US Pacific Fleet. As things happened in those days, the Marine wound up as the Special Security Officer (SSO) for the First MARDIV in Vietnam, at Da Nang.
 
The Admiral was on a trip to the Philippines from Fleet HQ at Makalapa Crater at Pearl. He did some war-related recce business at Cubi Point, and wrapping things up, decided to pay a visit in-country to the war zone, so long as he was in the neighborhood.
 
It was a different Navy then. He used his considerable influence to get one of the VQ squadron SIGINT Whales, the EA-3, to fly the one hour mission across the South China Sea, and included a rescue mission for the Major, who enjoyed a Bloody Mary once in a while.
 
If you are hazy on your geography, Da Nang is warm all year round, and hotter than hell in the summer. The Marines are a Spartan lot, and the beer, when it was available, was provided grudgingly at the same temperature. Forget about a cold mixed drink. Quite impossible.
 
In the belly of the Whale, the Admiral caused to be placed some important cargo: a trash-case worth of ice cubes from the Cubi BOQ, a couple bottles of vodka and several industrial size cans of Navy Exchange tomato juice and lemons.
 
They flew the standard profile, the Whale lifting off majestically out over the blue sparking waters of Subic Bay, and west with the sun across the South China sea. Feet dry in the Republic of Vietnam, the Whale’s pliot brought it down in the steep corkscrew from Flight Level 10 to avoid small arms fire and into short final.
 
The Major was there at the flight line to meet them. SSO’s, after all, have their own back-channel communications not available to ordinary mortals in the combat zone. The Admiral smiled as they unloaded the Bloody Mary kit to reinforce the SSO. The ice was still frozen, having ridden at altitude in the bomb-bay, but obviously did not have much shelf-life in the shimmering heat of the flight line.
 
Last thing out of the airplane was one of those Included was one of those mini-reefers the kids use in their dorm rooms at school. This one was immediately loaded onto a jeep and delivered post haste to the Major’s tent.
 
It was producing the first ice cubes on the base in less than an hour.
 
I waved at Natalie the bar-maid for another vodka myself. The Admiral smiled at me, thinking about a rescue mission well done long ago.
 
“That wasn’t the end of it,” he said, eyes twinkling. “That reefer came back from Vietnam the next year, when I was back in Washington. The Major made a point of returning it.”
 
“That is amazing,” I said. “How the hell did he get it out of Da Nang? Taped up like crypto gear? Is it still around?”
 
“It was part of my home bar for years,” he said. “I don’t know what happened to it in the remodeling after I moved to The Jefferson.”
 
“You might ask,” I said, sipping at my drink. “I would be happy to undertake a restoration project on behalf of the Smithsonian. The role of ice cubes in the conduct of the Southeast Asian conflict - their lack or plenty- cannot be underestimated.”
 
The Admiral laughed, and then he leaned forward and told me a really cool old secret.
 
Where the information came from and what it was used for is of interest only to the dead and the historians, and there were none of us at the bar in that category. There was a time when someone had to die about it, but that is long ago.
 
Back then, if the Admiral had told you, something horrible would have had to happen. And even if it is all out in the open these days, we try to avoid that, where possible.
Copyright 2009 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com