We confess we don’t get what is going on at the moment. The War thing currently going on in Israel eludes some of our understanding. The IDF- the National Defense Forces- has a well-deserved reputation for excellence. The mystery of how it was taken by surprise a week ago is still unraveling, although some of it has slid off the conference table and onto the laps of America’s Spooks who also should have seen this all coming.

The other curious aspect of this is that there is plainly written law- in fact several of them- on the Federal books that prohibits a lot of the activity being reported on our flat-screens each morning. The flood of “immigrants” to the United States is mind-boggling and amounts to what could charitably be described as an invasion force.

It is peaceful, or relatively so, but we are bemused at how it is working. We have been doing the numbers from Gaza in a sort of uneasy parallel to the ones applied to migrants on the southern Border. Before a week ago at 6:30 sharp, the number bandied about was “seven million” referring to the number of law-breakers who were now in the United States without permission from the government. Many of us have observed most of the laws currently in effect. It is a multi-layered pile of disobedience conducted by our own government. It is wild.

And of course, we freely admit to being confused by the situation as a whole. Remember the lady arrested for invisible religious conduct? She claims she was praying silently outside a clinic that provides what they claim are reproductive services. There is no proof her conduct was actually religious in nature, since she wisely kept her mouth shut.

But the law enforcement arm of His Majesty’s Government in Scotland arrested her, apparently for her invisible thought. Layered on top of that is the story about the family in Tennessee who are faced with deportation despite being peaceful and having the same claims to oppression over home schooling.

Theirs is an interesting case, since they arrived in the U.S. from Germany some 14 years ago with the intention of avoiding German education standards, portrayed here as “home schooling.” It is perfectly legal here, so the prosecution here is based on an old state law that was originally passed and signed into law to ensure the kids attended school.

We are not residents of the Volunteer State, so don’t understand exactly why the Germans were reported or who felt the obligation to do so. Here at Big Pink, We live next to the home state of the once-great city of Baltimore, where coincidental reporting indicates 13 schools have failed to teach their students basic mathematical skills. Up in New Jersey, one of the two Senators representing 9.28 million people actually has been indicted for criminal activity.

Senator Robert Menendez is the man in the crosshairs of a mountain of trouble. The pending indictment against him alleges a bewildering level of corruption. The pictures of solid gold ingots and stacks- veritable mountains of cash- has been featured as “breaking news.” We support th Constitutional protection for the senator, which is that all of us are innocent until proven guilty. He has a defense, of course, just as he did the last time he was tried in court on similar charges.

He avoided conviction eight years ago not by being innocent, but because a jury of his peers could not agree on a verdict. He was subsequently re-elected, so his constituents apparently were OK with the way he conducts business. But still…

We are left with the disturbing opinion that the America in which most of were raised has significantly changed the basis on which it operates. Can you imagine if any of the above conduct would have been tolerated in the 1950s? Apparently, it has always been with us to some degree, largely conducted in our Big Cities, since as bank robber Willie Sutton observed, “That is where the money is.”

Some of us were born and raised in places like Detroit, once the fifth largest city in the U.S. The troubles there have an echo of the border crisis today. A great migration of workers and their families can be traced back to the World War II years when the existing work force was swept up in uniform and needed replacement to keep the Arsenal of Democracy humming to victory. There were great inequities in the land. Housing was one of them, as were Jim Crow laws in the Southern States.

The location on the corner of Kimathi Street and Kenyatta Avenue put the Central Business District almost at our feet at the New Stanley. History floods the place!).

We did the usual stuff between trains and the famous Nairobi National Park. Rated with 5 stars, we were satisfied with this high-quality property that provided us with access to massage, restaurant and a nice on-site fitness center.

After four days in Kenya, we were done killing time waiting for the National Command Authority (NCA) to make up its mind about what to do about the Iranians and the American hostages they had taken. Seventh Fleet and the Commander of the Pacific Fleet decided we had been out there long enough and broadcast a message for us to return to Yokosuka as soon as the piers were clear.

There is a curious memory about that as well. We were visiting that amazing Pan Am Stewardess in San Francisco on the pass-through back through CONUS. We were headed for Detroit and Florida for some reason and thinking about marriage in a not-uncertain manner. Given those fairly radical themes, we assume that was the trip in which we were directed to report to the Counter-Insurgency school at Coronado to learn the proceedings for communications in case we got captured and held against our will.

The details are a little unclear at this point, since it was nearly 45 years ago. We had already been in the Indian Ocean for nearly a month, and christened the name of the navigational reference point we used to mark our position southeast of Iran. More detail? Oh, forgot the stop at Thailand’s Pattaya Beach, and the two glimpses of Singapore’s proud towers behind the brown waters of Malacca going west and east on return to Pacific waters.

Once home, we got some exciting Navy news. We had been relieved out on Gonzo Station, our navigational point that Dean and Vic had named without authorization. The USS Ranger (CV-61) was intended to be our “numerical relief” out there, but sadly encountered a merchant ship on her way west and damaged the hell out of her bow. 7th Fleet Command decided that since we had just returned, it was only fair that we immediately get going again and relieve Ranger.

The Japanese shipyard that served us so well would turn its attention to repairs while we were out on the ocean to the west. Through a variety of unplanned successions, Ranger and Midway traded places on the deployment schedule and we got inducted into Davey Jones Locker twice in a single year. We only got certificates for the first crossing though. Anything else would be wasteful, you know?

Oh, we got the images back from America Online! This is what was the New Stanley!

Copyright 2023 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com.