We are engaged in direct support to a proxy conflict in Eastern Europe that could lead to an atomic exchange. That is still a bit of a surprise. The Writer’s Section at Socotra House apologizes for a slight lapse of attention to the matter. Some of us had been distracted by what happened in New York City and at the Pentagon back in 2001. We were whirled away into what was called the “Global War on Terror.” That bit of unpleasantness kept our attention far away for quite a while. Meanwhile, there was some stuff going on that slid right by our attention.

It is quite disconcerting. While we were supporting military support operations in all sorts of places, a continent we like a lot had returned to a process of deliberate self-destruction. There is some complicated stuff in progress. The Russian invasion naturally galvanized our support for the Ukrainian people. We supported opening up the munitions vaults here in America to provide support. Still do, though how we arrived here is a matter of some controversy.

What was strange about it did not become apparent until recently, which was a discussion about some of the odd financial transactions that made Kiev- or what they are calling Kyiv these days- the center of a money laundering enterprise that made a lot of people quite wealthy.

The Chairman was a little haughty about what happened in our distraction, and tried to bring us up to speed on what we missed. He had a manuscript he waved around and dropped on the coffee table before sweeping off to inspect what may have been actual snowflakes that melted as soon as they touched the black asphalt on the parking lot below.

“William E. Socotra took the “Grand Tour” of Europe in 1903,” he said, rising before departing the balcony. “That was the year that humankind first took flight in machines heavier than air. The glitter of the colonial empires and the world over which it stood as Master, was only ten years away from implosion.”

“Bill lived to 1926 after his return to Pennsylvania. It was a ripe age in those days, and he was able to read in the papers about the Czar and his family being shot down like dogs and the sunny fields of France converted to vast gray muddy charnel houses. And a generation of young English and German boys sacrificed to the gods of high explosives and disease.”

Then he tugged on the door to the condo’s great room to move on with his morning. The ceaseless press of the air against the flank of the eight-story building made him yank hard. “Grandfather Bill would not have found it inconceivable. He was twelve when 15,000 Confederate troops from Lt. Gen. Richard S. Ewell’s Corps camped overnight on June 26, 1863 at Dykeman Spring in his hometown of Shippensburg, Pennsylvania. His family store had been raided by Ewell’s scavengers before they moved out for Carlisle the next day. His father had been forced to drive a wagon for the invaders. In Pennsylvania. “That was a war right next door. Now, it is just across the Atlantic.”

There was some nodding of heads around the circle. Most us were aware the Continent had been at peace then since the Franco-Prussian war in 1871 and the consolidation of the various Germanies under Prussia, and it’s Kaiser.

The Chairman’s grandfather- or Great Grandpa, really- was a scrupulous if pedestrian correspondent. His postcards have a certain constancy to them, almost the same message neatly written on each one. That would be suitable for a man accustomed to keeping accounts. We are not sure who accompanied him, but the image he sent from the SS Mesaba on which he sailed shows a solid group of jolly travelers.

Holding the door against the raw force of the breeze, the Chairman smiled. “The destruction of Europe got rolling in 1914 with something quite new. And quite big. They called it The Great War, since nothing that vast in scope had ever occurred. The Peace that came in 1918 had equal challenges. There was a natural inclination to make the Germans pay for the destruction caused by four years of confict. The damages of the imposed peace determined at Versailles led directly to even more spectacular trouble in 1939. The second installment of the Great War was even more spectacular in Scope and only ended with the exhaustion of Europe and the rise of the United States and the Soviet Union as the dominant global powers.”

“Yeah. But the Cold War was nearly seventy years avoiding mass destruction.” Buck put his cup of Chock Full O’ Nuts on the table. “But something else happened in there, and we weren’t paying much attention.”

“You mean actually going to War with Russia in Europe?” Melissa looked appalled, since that had not been part of her to-do list, and it was a fairly extensive one.

“Yeah,” said Splash. “It took two gigantic struggles to get to where we were just a couple years ago. Now it appears to be a struggle to overthrow Mr. Putin. I don’t recall signing up to this iteration of a ground conflict against a guy with 6,000 nukes in his locker.”

Loma stood up to follow the Chairman away from morning coffee and on to something else. Before he left, he muttered something about the collapse of human enterprise. “For Europe? Third time is the charm.”

The wind pressure made the closing of the balcony door a little more dramatic than he had intended. Those of us left out there felt a chill and we decided to join them inside where it is safe. For now, anyway.

Copyright 2023 Vic Socotra
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