Tuesday Pre-Wrap: Mukasey, Movie, Letters from the Past

-Mukasey voted out of committee, 11-8. Goes to full Senate now. Suggest the People demand that he be put on a very short leash with plenty of oversight. I also want him to be successful in making the DoJ a respected and legal arm of our government again.

-Netflix movie: Hero, a Flying Daggers type movie, Chinese though in English which Diane and I both appreciated.. Fun, interesting, colorful, nifty dancing and leaping and flying. Like a dream.

More later. Watching pbs and Frontline - a program on rendition...

Ok, back after a short break to hear about those illegal renditions that the CIA performed.

-Letters from the past, that would be my letters to Diane as I sailed around the Far East with Diane back in Yokosuka tending the home fires and, by the time we left in mid 1965, two youngsters as well. After posting about Goodbye, Darkness this morning, I continued to think about my own Navy days. Got to the point where I asked Diane if those letters that we saved all these years and carted around with us from pillar to post had much detail about where the Washtenaw County was during those days we were away from Yokosuka. She remember that there was not a whole lot as we were careful about revealing information that the enemy (whoever that was) might be able to use, you know, loose-lips-sinks-ships kind of stuff. This was more dire in 1964 and 1965 as the problems down south (Vietnam) became more acute.

In any case, Diane did retrieve the letters for me. They had been sorted and bundled by year so it was easy for me to go immediately to times that interested me, like the spring of 1965 when we did a lot of steaming between the Philippines and Vietnam waiting for Washington to make a decision. Found some references to just that and other stuff as well. Like a scheduled R and R in Hong Kong; like taking a load of 357 Marines from Fugi to Naha in February; like going from Subic Bay (Philippines) back to Buckner Bay (Okinawa) in March; like asking Diane if she made it to Kobe for what we thought was going to be a mini vacation for all of us but was then cancelled, that being in February as well; like being at our objective (probably Chulai, Vietnam) in May. Cool beans. There was also comments made on what was going on on the ship, people relationships, shore leaves, even hitting golf balls while docked or anchored down in Subic Bay with a fellow officer before heading to the pool for swimming, sunning and drinking. More cool beans.

But, as many of you know, a little bit of me goes a long way. And I quickly tired of the perusing and went on to other things, like watching the Nova program on sputnik and eating popcorn with Diane. Will go back though and do a little more peeking in on the past.

Goodbye, Darkness: Manchester Wraps Up His Story

Finished Goodbye, Darkness last night. Manchester saves his best for last - his own blood letting at the Battle for Okinawa. That battle for a piece of real estate that was to be used for the staging of the final onslaught of Japan's homeland, was long and intense and bloody with deaths in the hundreds of thousands, at least 150000 of whom were civilians. As mentioned before, the Japanese had no doubts about what the outcome was going to be and they accepted their destiny with relish and a cup of sake or two. Remember, for them, surrender was the highest form of treachery and cowardice. Good read.

While in the Navy, we, that would be the Washtenaw County and its sailors, would travel down to Okinawa from Yokusuka quite often. There we would load (and unload) a group of Marines and their rolling stock and other material and head out to roam the Far East, to train and keep ourselves ready for any eventuality. And it was there that I received word of the birth of Number One Son, Martin. As a matter of fact, I was sitting in the Officers' Club while Diane was taking care of all the birthing details. You do your duty wherever you are, right? I was also away with the birth of Number One Daughter, Michele, though was able to leave the ship at Numazu and jeep southeast of Mt. Fuji and o'er the Japanese countryside to get home the next day. And, yes, you are right: both children returned to the States with a little tag around their necks, made in Japan.

Breakfast time, then the golf course. World turns; 25th anniversary of the opening of the Vietnam Memorial.

More early '70's happenings...

I did get something to eat and I did wander over to the golf course where it is still wet, still raining and still cool. As I walked about, my mind wandered too, back to the early '70's and to why the break from the corporate and suburban life of Orange County, California (where fires are making thousands flee their homes as we speak). I recall now three seminal moments or events and I'm not sure of their chronological order: a family wedding back in South Bend which put us in touch with a multitude of relatives all full of the joie de vie and a closeness that only happens among family members; a business trip to Rochester NY from which I returned via my uncle's place in Greenwich Village which, as a community, is about as opposite as one could get from the one we lived in in Tustin, CA; and the reading of a book, one that made me think and question and ponder - The Greening of America.

The consequence of that convergence was the decision to change the way we were living, to stop supporting a way of life that had ceased to have meaning to us, to radically change direction and go down some unknown road in the pursuit of, well, we really weren't sure what it was we were looking for, just the need to change maybe.

Change happened. Just ask Diane, or Miki, or Marty. Miki and Marty, our two older children, nine and eight at the time of the change. The younger ones, Eric and Danielle, were not yet five.

(Going back home. Still wet, still raining, still cold.)