I have shared with you the contents of some letters accumulated by Jasper Holmes in the long years after the parades were completed, history recorded and other wars fought. The key players in the events of the war in the Pacific were retired by then, the Captains and the Kings, and there were some for whom the matter of stolen valor rankled.

Some of the letters you have seen betray the frustration felt by those who had been betrayed by the banal evil that is every day life in Washington, D.C. I view this formal letter from Jasper Holmes to Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz as the opening salvo in the campaign to assign the credit- and the physical manifestation of a bit of cloth and metal to one of the heroes of the Battle of Midway. By the time this saga is done, virtually all the participants will be in their graves.

Not Mac Showers, though. He was determined to stay the course, and this letter is the first in his personal file about how it all came to be. It was going to be a long fight against longer odds, since the truth is always the first victim in fights over turf and personal power.

But now Jasper, in his words.

It is a start. You can see Jasper attempting to craft this in a manner that would not offend those bastards in Washington. You can also see real staff work in the letter, with full names, dates of rank and retirement carefully penciled in.

You don’t see that much these days. Nor, of course, do you see people trying to do the right thing, regardless of the odds.

Copyright 2025 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303