Marlow gave us some verse this morning. It was useful crafting of the Political fervor of the moment against the celebration of the changing season. There is less than two weeks to go on how the next two years will flow in our legislative state. He helped set the iambic pentameter tone for this gray day in his Coastal Empire. Here in the moist Piedmont just to his north we are arrayed to stay dry under porch and awnings. There is news, of sorts, that fits with the gray sky and the prospect of trick or treaters approaching the Farm later today as the light fails. We expect only one such traditional party of visitors, and there is enough of those delicious caramel-and-sea-salt bit sized morsels to pass around in joviality from the new porch.

In Seoul, Republic of Korea, 150-odd souls perished in a crowd stampede that ended in a narrow alley. Across a world in turmoil, two other incidents sparked moderate reaction to other events, one on a bridge in India and the other in perpetually tumultuous Yemen. Both of these events add to the horror in Seoul. In total, nearly 500 lives were lost as collective crowds lost their way and began to sway in the junction of life and the end of it.

We prefer to stay under cover and let the smoke drift out from under the awning that shelters the porch off the Bunk Room.

It is a day of minor celebration with only a few professional mis-queues. One of them was losing a decade. Unscrambling that occupied nearly an hour that should have been devoted to creative interpretation of improbable events. Here is the deal: the group had an old manuscript the Chairman had scribbled during a period of enforced distance from hearth and home. It was a pretty dramatic event shared by about 4,000 citizens who took up residence on a mighty ship of steel and occupied themselves by blasting aircraft into the wind that flowed briskly over the proud steel tracks. After transiting the width of the northern Atlantic Ocean, the ship penetrated the passage belonging to someone named “Gibraltar,” though low gray clouds obscured the tall gray peaks to the north.

Reading the words in the old manuscript sparked interest, since most of us were Cold Warriors. That is a curious amalgamation of those old enough to be confronted by the Draft and the direct kinetic conflict of the war in Vietnam and those who were not. It was a vote of affirmation for the longer struggle against institutional Marxism, heavily armed with atomic weapons.

The last project out the door was an account drafted by a participant in the opening salvoes of a new struggle between the victorious allies who crushed the forces of Adolf Hitler and Hideki Tojo, acting on behalf of his Emperor. In so doing, a family friend was ordered to assist in the relocation of the emperor’s last battleship from that war and dispose of it in Atomic fire. That occurred in 1946, or some unfathomable distance in our race around the glowing solar orb. Three quarters of a century ago, near abouts.

The years are strange markers, but there is currently no confusion with ‘then’ and ‘now.’ That is not the case with some of the other years. 1979 was one of them, and the long sea voyage across the edge of the Pacific, down to the South China Sea and through the Strait of Malacca into the vast rich blue of the Indian Ocean, an equator and the lights of the Southern Cross.

That glow of bright white light in a strangely dark and unusually unpopulated sky marked that year that rhymes with wine, a pleasing number named nine. This morning there is word of continued unrest in Iran, the continuation of a sometimes stifled struggle now more than 40 years in history’s wake. But there was the source of the confusion. The manuscript that went to press was in another solar circuit ten years later. So the confusion between ‘79’ and ‘89’ was understandable if regrettable. We hope to keep the misunderstanding between us and the lady who does the lay-out in Arizona.

Both of those circuits around the sun started unique adventures. 1979 became 1980 in due course and a modicum of memory. From angry Iranians to irritated Koreans who protested a Korean coup was one conjunction of history. Ten years later, on a smaller but interesting body of saltwater, a Soviet leader met with an American President on a ship near Malta. That year passed with the unexpected outbreak of something called “Peace.”

That occurred only 32 years ago. The Chairman’s manuscript is a little odd in the account of a disagreement that lavished trillions of dollars and amassed a cache of arms that could end the sort of world we all enjoyed. It was an honor to be in that place at that time.

A Presidential visit to one of his warships is a huge deal. The special communications equipment to support his global command-and-control mission must be onloaded in advance. When the President visited the ship we rode, USS Forrestal (CV-59, another ‘9’), we ended the great struggle. There was no prospect of a big parade any time soon, though, and we had to keep things quiet out of respect for the feelings of our still powerful Russian adversary. That long-ago week we were off Malta and I had a bad cold.

I didn’t go down to the hangar bay to see him, nor to the mess decks to see if I could catch a peek as he dined with our sailors. He was with us to announce the end of the Cold War and meet with President Gorbachev. They couldn’t quite crow with triumph, though I think there was a certain twinkle in the Presidential eye.

For us it was both more and less than another day at sea. There was an interesting wrinkle about the Presidential visit, though, and it was the announcement of the departure of the Chief Executive.

Naval tradition dictates that an announcement be made on the ship’s 1MC public address system. Such departures were not announced by name but by title. When the skipper of another ship would visit, the ship’s name would be proclaimed when he alit and when he flew off. Each event was marked by two sonorous bongs of the brass bell. So, all through the timeless days the crew knew who was coming and going, not by name but by title. Once you get used to the strange depersonalization of it, the custom is quite useful. I will grant you that assuming the title of your ship or office is disconcerting. But it is part of the absolutism of Command at Sea.

Our commander, the Admiral of his Carrier Group, would thus be bonged on and off as “COMCARGRU SIX”, either “Arriving” or “Departing,” as though he was all of us. Captains of other ships in the Group would be announced in the singular. For example, the skipper of a nuclear cruiser whose class of ship was named for the states would be called out as: “California, Arriving!”

It was just as though the entire city of Los Angeles had dropped in out of the sky for a little chit-chat and a cup of joe. We paid it just as much notice, perhaps checking the Air Plan to see how long they were planning on staying and whether we had to put on fresh sheets. Non-naval visitors were a little more tricky, since the Bridge had to figure out the precedence and rank of the visitor. If the Secretary of Defense arrived for a visit, and one did, he was announced as “Defense, Arriving!” over the 1MC loudspeaker.

When the President finished his remarks that afternoon and the Secret Service was done guarding the hatches and ladders on the way back up to the flight deck the helmeted flight deck Sideboys who flanked the red carpet to the Presidential helicopter. When the Chief Executive is seated and suitably strapped, the rotors will increase in speed and gain lift. The instant the wheels leave the deck there will be two crisp strikes on the brass bell that echoes throughout the spaces and voids of the enormous ship. “America, Departing!”

It is an interesting thing to hear, with another few months to go. And headed east, toward the Holy Land.

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