(“Salty,” an image of a World War II Yankee sailor, salty as heck, done by W.E. Reddig, 1944)

It is a New Year with some interesting events on our spinning world to come! There are some other issues coming together on the bluff above the Potomac River. We are done with the holidays, finally, with ess than a week to go until our next one. We will drive over to Belmont Farms to restock merriment supplies. But on this morning we have evets from year’s past to apply to the ones to come.

In that spirit we are delighted to bring you a significant milestone in Socotra House publishing! To catch you up on the project, we had a rare opportunity to join with the survivors of World War Two and The Cold War in exploring their memories about the great conflicts of the last century. The ones that brought us to this curious time in American Greatness and Exceptionalism. And the strange changes of the post-Bipolar World as seen by the men and women who lived it- and helped create ours!

Having the opportunity to talk personally and collectively to Admirals Mac Showers, Rex Rectanus and Jinny Martin as friends was a magical opportunity. The interpretive perspective from RADM Tom Brooks and the Circle of Salts who lived the Vietnam conflict added texture to history. Our little sub-cadre saw the End of the Cold War, a couple of the Desert Wars and this strange new landscape of a multi-polar globe with ancient animosities rolled out of the shadows. Old and new conflicts, some armed with atomic weapons will show us something about the struggles to come. With the future possibilities comes the past in a literary trifecta.

Yes, it should be a boxed set. Yes, the price and size could be better integrated. It could have employed a platoon of real editorial support. But for this trip around the sun, this is something we retrieved from vivid memory with the men and women who lived it. A chapter from the “Cocktails With the Admiral” is entitled “Dumb luck.” It sums up a few of the mysteries that span the sum of life! We are proud to have been part of it- and you were there, too!

– Vic