29 July 2010

Editor’s Note: Turkey Day passed without untoward incident. Jon-without and I camped out at the bar of The Front Page, waiting for the precise moment to swoop down on the lavish buffet that featured all the classic holiday meals. Neither one of us was in a particularly festive mood for a variety of perfectly good reasons, but the moving images of the Lions playing on short rest against the Vikings brought the mood back, and the food was good. The traffic in the bar picked up as the game went on and the drinks were poured by Jesse the utility barman with alacrity. The Lions edged the Vikings by a field goal, all was right with the world, and soon enough I was sleeping off the turkey in a most excellent nap. Refreshed, I was able to sit up and take totally extraneous nourishment again, and marvel at the bounty of the season, the weirdness of public life, and the uncertainties to come in the New Year. And then the carols started, just like clockwork. I suppose they are sort of incorrect these days, and I am sure someone is bound to take offense, but I like the sound of them. And it is only for a month, you know?

– Vic

The wine was chill in the dimness of the Willow Bar. They turn the lights down at 5:15 each afternoon to encourage the enthusiasm of the regulars. The pork spring rolls from the neighborhood restaurant menu were hot.
Humidity was down on the sun-drenched streets outside. Jake was doing some business at the bar, and Mac and I were at one of the little tall cocktail tables that line the deep brown wooden divider that separates fine dining from the usual suspects in the lounge.

I was scribbling like mad, since I have everything out of order. Mac brought some documents and books to review. He had the CIA monograph on the end of the Pacific War, and the new book on the Berlin Airlift. Just what I needed, more books, but the craving to understand is an ongoing imperative, as insistent as thirst at the end of a summer business day.

“Charles Nathan” were the Christian names of Mac’s father, but he was on travel someplace. His Mom, Hedwig (“Hattie”) Showers came to the door, and Captain of Police Laurence N. Ham told her why he had driven her son over from the field house at the University of Iowa.

The Draft Act had not been passed yet, and there were some legal niceties that had to be accommodated, even though they would soon be swept away on the road to global war.

Lieutenant Ham cleared his throat. “Your son is just ten days away from his 21st birthday, Ma’am. I need to get your written authorization for him to join the Navy.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Hattie asked with a Mother’s concern. The world, or at least the rolling low hills of Iowa, was at peace. The trouble in Europe was someone else’s problem for the moment. A mother’s concern. Mac nodded to her, and she went ahead and signed her name.

With that, Lieutenant Ham was one body closer to meeting his prodigious quota list for August, and Mac smeared his thumbprint on the faded document that Mac produced from an envelope and placed on the table in front of me.
I was careful not to drip the savory dipping sauce from the spring rolls on it, or on his draft registration that he produced as a companion piece a moment later.

“My Dad was president of the Johnson County Draft Board, and when the Draft Act was passed the next month, he insisted that I sign up, even though I was already in the Navy,” he said, taking a sip of his savory red beverage. “He said: ‘no son of mine is going to be accused of not doing his duty.’ ” He shook his head at the ancient remark. “I was long gone before anyone could utter a word.”

It was the 15th of August, 1940. By acting as he did, Mac missed the lottery choice that everyone a month younger faced. Mac instantly became a Seaman Apprentice in the United States Navy. Had he waited, his lottery number (like mine, a generation later) would have given him a few more months of liberty, but perhaps delivered him a second lieutenant of Infantry in some dog-face outfit assaulting a beach somewhere.

He wrote down the number on his Draft Card, just in case. 6618-238-2523.

With the passage of the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, also known as the Burk-Wadsworth Act, millions of American men a month younger than Mac were subject to the whims of the Selective Service.

I was writing like crazy anyway, anxious to get to past the tumult of the great naval battles of 1942 and get to the move of the Joint Intelligence Center- Pacific Ocean Area (JIC-POA) to the new digs in Makalapa Crater, and the events of 1943. We may actually get there one of these days.

Copyright 2016 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com