Tuesdays are a cool day. Well, hot if you are in the Piedmont of Virginia. The Writing Staff could feel it’s embrace growing amid the mild wisp of smoke rising down by the Loading Dock, one of the centers of our human interaction. It used to be that way in the public buildings of your nation’s capital after the General Services Administration (GSA) banned lit tobacco in the hallowed halls of places like the Pentagon. If you were down there in one of the alleys that surround each of the wings, you know. The smokers had all the scoop, since they were thinly ones who actually talked to each other.
Which is one of the reasons Tuesdays are special. That is a morning the staff is required to put together the events of the week. Naturally, the staff was alarmed about the newest blight on our Democracy: Heterosexual intrinsic bias. It was identified in Loudoun County as something teachers are supposed to root out. There was some muttering about that. One of the older members of the staff waved around a Congressionally-sponsored report. “They” had been a sailor back when “abled,” and seemed to take the results personally.
“Is the U.S. Navy ready for war?”
“There aren’t any. We are almost out of Afghanistan with a twenty year history of losing to determined tribesmen. That is a tradition that goes back to Alexander the Great.”
“How is your old service doing about equity and diversity? That is what counts today for combat efficiency.”
The sheaf of papers in the Old Salt’s hand, laboriously Xeroxed out in the country normally bereft of such luxury since the local Kinkos closed quivered visibly. “This report paints a portrait of the Navy as an institution adrift. It is not focused on preparing for war. Look at the string of recent screw-ups. Bonnie Dick burned at the pier in San Diego last year. Two destroyer collisions in the Pacific in 2017. They talked to 77 active-duty sailors for an hour apiece. The kids agreed their their leadership distracted, captive to bureaucratic excess, and rewarded for successful execution of administrative functions. Admin crap, for God’s sake.”
“Well, isn’t that what is important these days?”
One of the other mature scribblers looked at his mug of coffee. “We used to be able to light off our coffee from the jet fuel that ran in our fresh water on the ship. But whether the coffee flickered or not, we were ready to fight the Commies.”
I saw an opening and took it. “Well, if you want to spend the time before lunch talking about pronouns we can do that, but it is sort of interesting about what we are ignoring.”
“Like what? We need to root out Patriarchy, Heterosexism, and all those other words we don’t understand.”
One of the interns screwed up “their” courage. “I read about the 1960s. Why do we have to do this all again?” The elder-enhanced crowd looked at one another under bald pates or flowing gray hair and grimaced.
I tried again. “We did a big deal in Haiti back then to provide democratic elections. Last week the elected President was shot dead by a dozen guys, most of them from out of town. They shot the First Lady, too. No reaction.”
“And over the weekend, Cubans paraded against their government. Some of them waved the Stars and Stripes as a demonstration of something they claim was something called Freedom.”
“But the New York Times said that flag was a sign of division and oppression.”
“Maybe it is, to them. But there is all kinds of crap going on. The new British carrier is being followed by Russian submarines on her world tour.”
“Sounds like old times. Remember that? We used to have them around all the time.”
“Yeah, but they were Communist subs back then. Now they are expressing their equity on the world ocean.”
“But back then, we knew where they were and could take action when needed. Even if the coffee tasted sort of funny.”
I started gathering my papers and devices together, since there was going to be no time to talk about what we were supposed to do if the Chinese Commies went after Taiwan, or the Russians decided to crush Ukraine. Not to mention why all those strange people were flooding across the border to escape places like Venezuela, Nicaragua, Honduras and Mexico. And Canada, which was something I wouldn’t have expected forty years ago. I would have raised my hand to offer a motion to adjourn and get a sandwich in town, but one of the kids beat me to it. “They” said it more simply.
“We are tired of all your old crap and not interested in doing it again. How about lunch?”
There were smiles all around on that one, and Point Loma dropped his phone on the Long Green Table where it produced a solid thud. “I guarantee you every unit in the Navy is up to speed on their diversity training. I am just sorry I can’t say the same of their ship-handling.”
There were nods and frowns, and a consensus about whether fried foods or refreshing salads were the key to national defense was going to have to wait.
Copyright 2021 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com