The Ukrainian President took a moment to observe the 500th day of the Special Military Operation being conducted in his nation over the weekend. The second-string commentators on Fox filled the air-waves both days with stories a day or so out of phase in the re-run stringss of shattered Ukrainian tanks. It made us think of other times, twenty years ago. There was another war in the Balkans back then, and we had a chance to walk in some of the debris. We were still in uniform, at least theoretically, and working for the Deep State. Here is the context of what those times were like. It is summer of 2003.

That day, I showed up at the White House feeling dazed and reeking of alcohol. It was due to a dental visit, not a deliberate demonstration of early drinking, but the symbolism was powerful. My days left on the government payroll were a finite number. A friend had advised me that a rinse of a fine vodka could cut the germs. I had complied.

The feeling of disorientation was not unusual in dealing with that element of our tri-partite government, though it was not quite as extraordinary as it is today. The morning dialogue this morning featured some analysis of the war in East Ukraine, and some thoughts on what it would be like to be a young person trapped in the midst of mud and high-explosive horror.

The visit to the center of the Executive Branch had been prompted by a visit from the Deputy Chief of Staff. He is a good guy, one of my favorites here in this strange looking-glass town. He had lost weight, bought a house and life was looking pretty good. He told me not to worry about the press release from the White House that would be out later in the day. There was going to be a reorganization in the Office of Public Health Emergency Preparedness. Despite the changes caused by the SARS 1 response, I would be taken care of and things were not completely what they seemed. I smiled and said I had not just fallen off this particular turnip truck and had stopped worrying about things like government titles long ago.

Which was quite true, right up until the moment the announcement appeared on my desk. With the Boss gone and our operations officer on vacation things were fairly frantic in the office. There was an endless stream of supplicants appearing before me seeking decisions on the small matters that keep an organization humming along. That is what I had been doing the last few months, trying to keep things moving around the Boss, for whom all matters assume mythic import, part of a titanic struggle against the forces of evil on which only he could stand upright. He considered an imperious denial of deadlines a viable bureaucratic stratagem.

Which it isn’t, of course. And that is why they had set him free to travel and find himself a new job with a minimum of mess for the Department. I read the announcement and discovered the President was pleased to announce that a very good and wise bureaucrat was returning to the office as the Principal Deputy to the Assistant Secretary. That was a good and positive move, something to provide stability in the coming period between the regimes. The next item that the President was pleased about was the elevation of our Operations Officer to my job.

I thought about it for a moment. Blinked. Then made a decision and scrawled my initials on the appropriate line on a memorandum to forward to the Boss who wasn’t going to read it. The folders would stop coming to my desk now, or flow some other way. Or something. I needed to talk to someone and didn’t know who.So, that Monday on a summer day two decades ago was a not good day. I did everyone’s job until I couldn’t stand it anymore and left just after six. I had a knot in my stomach. Why had I been fired? Had I been fired? I had been on the job on an interim, acting basis. A loose cannon at Secretary Thompson’s personal request.

That moment had fled, and I was technically a contractor on limited appointment to the Government. With that status came a paycheck but no benefits. No health, no dental. I needed to find a dentist in a hurry. I remembered with relief that I am still technically on active duty with the Navy, suit and tie not withstanding. And so I found the bits of my last uniform in the closet, the one I was saving for my funeral, and drove to the Naval Hospital yesterday morning to seek relief.

Which came in a round-about way. They were curious about my record, which I had dutifully copied from the yellow folder that the Navy uses. My health and dental records are technically the property of the Government, and I turned them in when I out-processed with the personnel people at Anacostia. I rearranged what I copied topically and chronologically, separated by tabs and with the x-ray films in the pocket in the front. The Doctors were quite amazed at the organization, something with which they seemed unfamiliar.

As I reclined in the chair I thought about the office. They had promised the permanent Senior Executive billet as a condition of service, although the paperwork would take a few months to clear up.

It had cleared up, but now the billet was gone and a purloined e-mail from the personnel people indicated that process would have to begin again from the start. Even if it worked, it would leave me with only the health benefits of a retired officer, which is to say few and far between.

That is how I drove back to the apartment at Big Pink where I changed into my suit and tie. I gargled with some Gray Goose Vodka, mouth still tasting of copper. When I got back downtown to the lobby of the Old Executive Office Building, I saw one of our Captains waiting there, and we spent a few moments trying to determine which of the meetings was being joined by our new Deputy, the guy who had theoretically been working for me until yesterday.

I decided that our combined presence was overkill and went to look for some ice-cream. I realized the old saw about when you have your health you have everything is quite true. Compared with uncertainly about jobs and titles, dental pain is much more significant. All the rest is just what we do in preparation for other things. I had the last title from the Government I was going to be issued, and I could take it as far as I could carry it. That looked like the trunk of the car I had just re-financed

So that week, almost two decades back, is what marked the transition from bureaucrat to Contract civilian. It was a different way to look at The Deep State, filled with earnest people doing all sorts of earnest things with good if slightly ambivalent motivation. What astonished me was how similar the Department of Defense was to the Department of Human Services. Really, that seemed to be the phrase that sums up the whole thing, you know?

Copyright 2023 Vic Socotra
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