Gentle Readers, It was an emotional and uplifting afternoon at Arlington. Uplifting because John is done with us now, and his ashes returned to the soil. Uplifting because the shining swords and crisply presented rifles represented the very best of the Few and the Proud. Emotional because we stood on the grounds made sacred by […]

Lieutenant Baldomero Lopez, USMC, scales the seawall at Inchon’s Red Beach. Minutes later, he was killed when smothering a live grenade with his body. He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. John Guenther landed with the Division reserve.Seven days before the main attack, a joint Central Intelligence Agency–military intelligence reconnaissance operation, codenamed “Trudy Jackson,” […]

Port au Prince is in ruins this morning, which is a bit of an oxymoron. But the tragedy is real, and the misery is great. Even the Presidential palace crumbled, and that structure had lasted since General Smedley Butler’s Marines had the place built nearly a century ago.   I remember the last time I […]

(Old Navy Library, where OpNav Staff Documents were held)   The bitter cold lingers here in the capital. It has been quite a stretch, commencing with the two-foot dump of snow a week before Christmas and continuing right through this morning.   The normal strategy of the jurisdictions whose domains intersect this corner of the […]

(Navy Officer’s White Shirt)   There are always more questions than one would like, and some answers that one might not expect. All this happened a long time ago, after all, and with the passage of time comes distance. Emotions can fade, after all, though in the case of Rex his passion never flagged.   […]

(Insignia of a US Navy Vice Admiral, 0-9) Admiral Fritz Harlfinger had a big year in 1970. A two-star submariner, he was the Director of Naval Intelligence, and running out of jobs in the Navy. In the up-and-out world of the US military, a smart flag officer was always on the lookout for the right […]

(Red Banner Pacific Ocean Fleet Golf-class Ballistic Missile Submarine K-129) Oh Lord, this is a complicated business. I wish I could just ask Rex a couple questions when I had the chance, but we were working on other things and I never got around to it.   My pal Mac says he had dinner with […]

(The King and a fan, White House, December 1970. Official US Government Photo.)   I had drinks with Mac last night. Better said, he had a couple Virgin Mary’s that Peter the bartender fixes up like liquid salads, and I had a couple whiskeys to fortify myself against the coming snow. The cold is about […]

(The Pentagon, circa 1970) Fifty-five called me up the other day. He left a note on my machine in the office, and I listened to it, looking at the great pit across the street where the new DARPA building is going to rise and block my view of the low rolling hills of Fairfax County […]

(Director of Naval Intelligence RADM Fritz Harlfinger)   When Admiral Rex served his nation, there were three Navies. The whole thing is enough to make your head hurt, and it is a good thing that the taxpayers don’t think much about it much. It is not unusual; after all, there were at least three Air […]