Vic Socotra

9/11/2009

Gentle Readers,

I am going to take a strategic pause in the story I have been telling these last several days. There is plenty of time to finish it, and it is going to take a dramatically different path anyway.

It is dark and cold and wet as I write this morning. There could be no more stark contrast to how this day dawned eight years ago. It was a September morning of almost unearthly beauty here and in New York

I should be headed out to Suitland, out past the old Potter's Field, to the Naval Intelligence complex on the Federal property there where a ceremony to commemorate the memory of the good people of our family who perished at the hands of evil men eight years ago.

I am not, but my friends who died that day would understand, and I will visit them privately later where they lie in Arlington.

As you go about your affairs this morning, give a thought to those who are on watch, or in the field.

Something extraordinary happened just a week or two ago in Florida that shows the resilience of the human spirit. In order to support the men and women who are fighting for us, the intelligence community has just opened a magnificent facility designed to produce timely and accurate intelligence.

It contains tens of thousands of square feet of the secure space for analysts, the finest tools, and the most advanced communications to get their operational intelligence to those who need it to ensure that the fewest of our kids and innocent civilians die- and that the bad guys do.

There was really only one name that could be applied to the builiding. It is pretty grand, said in full:

"The Lieutenant Commander Otis Vincent Tolbert Joint Operational Intelligence Center."

They have already shortened it to something much more managable. For the hundreds who work there, and for those of us who knew him, the building is called: "The Vince."

Shari is Vince's widow. She gave a compelling speech at the opening ceremony. Vince's folks, Butch and Nancy were proud, of course. Butch was a Navy pilot back in the day. But the kids were the stars, just as they were to their dad.

Remember.

Vic

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