CAPT William Marc Luoma, USN-Ret.

This is one of those mornings in the Piedmont that cries out with life’s energy and spirit of renewal. There is raw but gentle power flowing from the bright sun, the skies lightly optimistic in blue, and encouraging us all to get outdoors and do something. We had coffee before the Sunday staff meeting and a cup of contemplative coffee, sweetened with honey from the Russian-managed hives next door. There is something palpable in the union of beauty and sweetness produced from the green and growing creatures on the land in Spring. Simply marvelous.

So, between visits to the back deck to observe the ongoing struggle of the Turkey Buzzard flock to prosper on the same verdant land, I was dragged through ancient family history looking for something else. The project has been on the list for over a month, one tinged with sadness and a bit of resolution. One of the reminders of life as it is, rather than the way we might like it, was the passing of shipmate Point Loma.

Marc Luoma was a prolific teller of stories from his life, and I was happy he joined our little irascible stable of authors several years ago. He was most productive in the last two years, writing about fabled liberty ports and armed conflict in this period of our nation’s longest wars. When word came of his departure from this life, I resolved to collect his tales in a thematic manner. Since we shared a few decades service in an old and proud organization, I searched for all the files in the jumble of computers that ended with his old-style signature sign-off: “I remain your obedient Servant.”

What showed up in a long, long list included some completely disassociated material involving old family history that was almost complete years ago. I ran through it quickly, since I thought I was on the way to something else, marveling at the references to family business in New Haven, CT, in the year 1638. At least one rebel from the Revolution appeared there, and maybe more. Realizing that our swirling world could alter my orbit as abruptly s Marc’s, I cleaned it up enough to send to the kids. I marveled that the line of descent included adamant Temperance crusaders, devout Lutherans, and earnest men and women of civic virtue.

I shared few of those virtues, and those who had them mostly lie in the fertile soil of Pennsylvania. I found the other string, the one of wild Celtic souls who lived in Ohio river towns like proud Nashville, Tennessee, as their brough (and hunger) was lost in a new world. They included Catholics, whose devotions were in contrast to those in Pennsylvania, and thoroughly Old School, which is what connected them to Point Loma’s stories of what has now evolved from a way of life to become a Trademark which I will eschew.

Best we can do is that we were Old(er) Navy, and I will let my Dad’s generation wear their time in the fashion they chose to remember. They just called it “The Navy.”

Point Loma swore his oath to the Constitution about the time I did. It was only a couple years after the fall of Saigon, so the trappings of that conflict still cloaked nearly everything. I was only interested in a stint of paying work that involved adventure, and after training at the intel school at Lowry AFB near Denver, volunteered for an assignment with a fighter squadron embarked in a historic ship, the USS Midway (CV-41). At that moment, it happened to be forward deployed in Yokosuka, Japan, under a scheme the Department called “The Overseas Family Residency Program,” or (OFRP). We called it that, sometimes, but more often other things.

Point Loma rode the same ship into her last war in DESERT STORM, so those of us who lived and worked within her steel embrace had a taste of the Old(er) Navy.

These newer days, the new Administration has decreed a primary area of mission emphasis to be the expunging of all that ancient baggage. Accordingly, the experience in the ancient world is worth recalling. To do so, I sat transfixed, listing the ones Point Loma wrote about for a prospective Table of Contents. The places all called out in vivid memory: Andalusia in magnificent Spain, Hong Kong and Subic and all the ports between. Since the Navy combines excellent travel with thoroughly lethal activities, there were other old concepts in the list: Victory at Sea, Weight of Command, The Right Stuff, Death of the Ready room. And of course, Death to Wogs. There is more, of course.

I will be drawn back to that, placing Point Loma’s tales in coherent order and letting his tale tell itself. But the very nature of that act runs in the face of the way things work. Point Loma did not have a chance to finish his work, so in the spirit of an Old(er) time, we will dispatch a working party to pick up the load, get it squared away, and note in the log that we are steaming as before.

Life is funny. It is interesting to see it drifting aft, in the minor turbulence of the wake-producing turning screws that broaden into a widening vee that encompasses the lowering golden solar orb and then disappears behind the majestic blue curve of the earth that hides home under a different sky.

I will keep you posted on how that goes. It is not a different place. It is the same, and eternal in its own quirk-filled manner of thunder and laughter and sometimes tears. Or at least it is while someone remembers and hoists a Cubi Special or two in its honor.

Copyright 2021 Vic Socotra
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