On Gonzo Station, Part Nine (Marine VMF-P3 RF-4, VF-151 Switchbox F-4 and VF-161 Rock River F-4- the three flavors of Phantoms on Ma Midway, 1980. Navy photo.)   Maybe things will come out all right. It is hard to say. One thing seems to be true: we are going to get to leave and go, […]

On Gonzo Station, Part Eight Editor’s note: It is back to work week, which accounts for my failure to digitize these ancient notes. It is January, 1980, in the Northern Arabian Sea. There might be something going on we do not understand. Or not. But the paperwork has to be perfect. (I wish our picture […]

  On Gonzo Station, Part Seven (T.R. Brown and his Radar Intercept Officer Frank “Personal Friend of Mine (P-FOM)” prepare for a ten second flight. Photo USN.)   It was the usual day. Up two hours before two hours before launch to prepare the first four of eight cyclic event briefings. An early chat with […]

On Gonzo Station, Part Six   Gentle Readers, Doctor Hayes, current minion of Papa Doc Anderson, freed me from captivity at Walter Reed Medical Center yesterday. “You are not completely healed, but there is nothing further that we can do for you here in the Cast Clinic. The rest you have to do yourself. Papa […]

On Gonzo Station Part Five (USS Nimitz All-Nuclear Task Group transits Gibraltar en route the Indian Ocean at best speed, December, 1979. They say when the group turned the corner at the Cape of Good Hope the carrier was throwing a rooster-tale. Photo USN). Gentle Readers, this is a Walter Reed Day, and I am […]

December, 1979 I stood on the flight deck this morning to watch the sunrise. It was a sky like a watercolor painting by John Singleton Copley, and the wind was brisk. The pastel colors were perfect. The Marines were doing Jody Calls as they ran around the quarter-mile circuit on the flight deck. It was […]

On Gonzo Station, Part Three Editor’s Note: It is Raven’s birthday, my father having been born August 8, 1923. He would have been 89 this circle around the sun. This is the first of his birthdays he is not here to enjoy. Meanwhile, I am out of the real world, ignoring the endless campaign and […]

(On Gonzo Station, Part Two) 21 November 1979 Editor’s Note: This account was contemporaneous to the events in Iran, 1979-80, and was discovered in the chaotic Socotra archives. Attitudes and descriptions are as they were some 32 years ago, and are preserved only in the interest of historical accuracy. In keeping with the novelty of […]

Anatomy of a Crisis IN THE GULF OF OMAN “USS Midway CV-41 relieved USS Constellation, CV-64 as the Indian Ocean contingency carrier on April 16, 1979. Midway and her escort ships continued a significant American naval presence in the oil-producing region of the Arabian Sea and Persian Gulf. She conducted naval exercises with the RAN […]

(Image of Damascus yesterday as Government forces attempt to crush the last rebels in the capital. Nearly 50 Iranian “pilgrims” were detained not far away. Photo USAToday and AP.)   I got some updates from the Northland yesterday, part of another of the lost weekends that characterize this lost summer. It is high summer there, […]