I had drinks and dinner with an old comrade and his lovely daughter last night. We were at Willow, of course, though I mention that only in passing. I will not provide a detailed blow-by-blow on the meal that consisted of the extraordinary award-winning Willow Burger, local hormone-free beef on house-made potato bun garnished with Havarti cheese, onions and garlic sautéed in duck confit butter with hand-cut fries on the side.

It answers the old campaign question about “where’s the beef” in a most satisfying manner.

I have resolved to be less obsessed with the local watering hole, and that will be easy enough, since I am on the road to the Wolverine State this morning. I didn’t have a burger- I weakened at lunch and actually cooked the food that would expire while I am going to be gone, and accordingly wasn’t particularly hungry. The burgers did look good, and even the young Baroness (her title is worth a story all in itself, including antecedents stretching back to the Norman Invasion and some banished opponents of the Crown) polished hers off with panache.

I was pleased to spend some time with her. She is smart, vivacious, ambitious and no fool.

Our kids are doing fine. I am quite impressed with their ability to navigate the treacherous waters of modern life, and they seem to accept the new reality that continues to boggle my aging brain. We talked about all that in some detail, along with life in the Depression, and the compare-and-contrast to how our grandparents handled the sudden dislocation of their age, and what we are doing to prepare for the next one.

Anyway, my pal is fully retired except for some academic work to keep his hand in, and has actually let his special background investigation go out of scope. “Last piss-test for me,” I said, taking a sip of the very impertinent Happy Hour White. “Last bring-up investigation. Last polygraph. I am done.”

My pal smiled. He has been much better about letting this all go.

We were seated at one of the little tables to the right of the bar, and the usual suspects stopped by to be introduced to the out-of-towners. Jon-without has encouraged The Lovely Bea to travel to Panama to accompany Placid Jamie, who, on a whim, chartered a personal trip to a resort on the Pacific side of the country. Old Jim was courtly, and demurred when my pal noted that he was famous. “Only in a very small universe,” he said, as Chanteuse Mary, her sister and Montana Dan arrived to occupy the apex of the Amen Corner.

It felt like home amid the bustle of Mike and Jasper and Tex and Brenna servicing a raucous Friday night crowd.

(Beefy “Fat” Leonard Francis, mastermind of the biggest corruption scheme in Navy history?)

I don’t know if the subject of Fat Leonard came up or not as my table mates polished off their burgers. We both care passionately about our Navy, the old one in which we served and the new one, which is a mystifying thing.

But nothing is as mystifying as the allegations of bribery and kick-backs in the Pacific Fleet. I don’t know if there is any beef to anchor the latest allegations in reality.

CHINFO- the Chief of Navy Information- has been circumspect about the investigation, but the reporting had been fairly straightforward. Investigators had so far accused only mid-level Navy officers of accepting the services of prostitutes, lavish trips and six-figure bribes from Fat Leonard Francis, a Malaysian contractor of imposing girth and bold intent.

It might have been mentioned in passing- I forget, since there is a lot going on to talk about as it is. My pal and I exchange passionate missives nearly every morning about elements of the Continuing Crisis. I know what he thinks about criminal conduct, since we talk about it all the time. He started out as a Surface Warfare officer, and that tribe is the most relentless and unforgiving in punishing deviations from The Book as it is written.

Since we were sitting talking about times past, we did not know about the bombshell CHINFO dropped at the end of the week’s news cycle. I heard about it for the first time from Japan, where the JG wrote to ask: “WTF, Oscar?”

They could not have chosen a better time for release to try to bury the story. The information that two officers I know pretty well were the latest to be rolled up in the investigation. CHINFO says they have been placed on administrative leave, and stripped of their access to classified information.

I was with them two weeks ago at the annual Dining-In. To say I was thunderstruck would be an understatement. The email queue, when I opened it in the pre-dawn, was filled with commentary by my former shipmates about how, or why, the Director of Naval Intelligence and Director of Intelligence Operations were implicated in Fat Leonard’s web of corruption. Specifically, they were accused of “inappropriate conduct” in connection with the scandal.

Fat Leonard was CEO of an outfit called Glenn Defense Marine Asia. Apparently his scheme was to bribe Navy officials to shift port calls for deployed warships to ports where he could charge exorbitant fees for repairs and ship’s chandlery services.

I am going to withhold judgment. One of my most learned peers opined that the charges might be so widespread that our pals were being squeezed by the NCIS to provide information against others.

I have no idea. This is so far being anything I find credible that I am frankly gob-struck. This is not my Navy. It is beyond anything I find imaginable.

I am going to wait until the Federal Prosecutors out in San Diego dribble out some more information about where the beef is in this thing, maybe releasing it at a time when people will pay more attention. Beyond doubt, this signals a significant escalation in the investigation. I remember our last big scandal. Tailhook seems kind of quaint in comparison.

The accusations, if true, are unprecedented in the history of the American Naval Service.
The allegations against the Admirals are of “personal misconduct in accepting gifts or services from Mr. Francis, the nature of which could have exposed them to blackmail.”

I poured over the New York Times reporting this morning. There is no sign at this point that the admirals had done anything for Mr. Francis that might lead to bribery charges against them. The DNI used to command Nimitz, though he hardly got to pick the ports at which the nuclear carrier would call. The Director of Intelligence Ops has never commanded anything except a shore command in Hawaii, which has never moved at all in my experience.

Whatever it is, I feel sick to my stomach. And I am very glad to be retired.

I have to get on the road. There will be a lot to think about during the drive.

Copyright 2013 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303