Vic Socotra

27 June 2008

Rim of the Pacific

There is more than a hint of longing in my heart this morning.

From lovely Pearl Harbor, the ships of nine navies are putting to sea, sliding down the narrow channel by Hospital Point and to the deep drop-off and into the open sea. It is the twenty-first iteration of a bi-annual nautical carnival that has been held since 1971.

It called RIMPAC, an exercise of collective armed might.

I was part of it once, though it now seems long ago. My division was responsible for generating the implausible scenario that provided the framework for the interaction between all the ships and aircraft.

It was enormously complicated, right down to the purportedly allied personnel that we discovered frantically Xeroxing our tactical manuals. On advice from our Seniors, we decided to simply take the handbooks back and ignore the attempted theft. It would not have been neighborly to have the thieves thrown in the brig.

The US Navy views this as the major western exercise, and the crown jewel in generating good will. Every has invited ships from the nations that front the Pacific Rim, east and west, to participate in a series of mock war games in the areas designated for training south and west of the Hawaiian Islands.

Forty-one ships and over 150 aircraft will participate in the drills starting this weekend, and will last, the various schedules permitting, through the end of July.

USS Kitty Hawk, on her way from service in Japan and headed for the boneyard, will be the centerpiece of the evolution. It was supposed to be George Washington, but she is in San Diego, undergoing reconstruction from the consequences of a major fire.

Forty-seven years the Hawk has plowed the sea, and this last unscheduled evolution will cap a history of meeting national commitments through improvisation.

With the exception of the USS Constitution, Pueblo (aka People’s Museum #5), and the USNS Observation Island, Hawk is the oldest naval ship in the inventory. It will be sad to see her go. I have been in favor of sinking the number two and three ships on the list for many years, but it looks like events will conspire to keep their places on the list for a while longer.

I would certainly rather be going to sea than driving across the District this morning. It is warm and sultry here, and they are setting up the tents for the annual Folk Art festival on the National Mall.

Driving on the East-West Freeway I will be able to see the shorter, darker Dome of the Library of Congress from the concrete ditch.

The Library obscures the Doric temple of the Supreme Court. I stayed up a little late last night and read the majority and dissenting opinions of the High Court on the Second Amendment. It is the first time the Court has addressed the issue in seventy-odd years, and the people who scheme these things appeared to think that the time was right to challenge the notion that the bearing of arms was a collective right, like the one we exercised in RIMPAC.

There are a lot of people who will be hysterical this morning about what it means, and I have already heard from the Mayor of Chicago and the Police Chief of Los Angeles. I hear their concerns, and I also hear in them the small voices that would take any part of the Bill of Rights away, if it made their streets safer and jobs easier. I encourage you to read the opinion in the original. It is remarkably approachable, both pro and con.

http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/07pdf/07-290.pdf

Justice Scalia, speaking for the majority of one vote, indicated it was not. The right to have a weapon in your home is an inalienable right. Or at least it is until the next group schemers make a run at another court.

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