Monsters of the Meridian

Monday, February 09, 2009

43^rd Day: Passed Way Point 12 at 30° 0.0’ S and 3.00° West. We are on the final leg to Cape Town, 1100 miles away. That should be about five days. The sea this morning is going through its daily exercise of changing color. At the moment, the sun is high, and it lights up the waters as gallium gray, with rose, white, and blue in it. I can not tell you its color, but it is pretty, and I’d like to have a car painted like that. Some days we see hues of blue: azure, blackish, aquamarine, baby, cobalt, gem stone, and dozens of in-betweens. Sometimes it is gold or orange, at times pink, and often, this ocean is as Homer described it: wine-dark. A wine-dark sea can be anywhere from maroon-rose to coal-purple. It is green only in the shallows. At night, it is black.

Think of its size, this Atlantic Ocean, which is neither largest nor deepest. We have averaged about 7.4 statute miles per hour throughout the 43-day (so far) voyage. Most of the water we have sailed would cover over the highest Rocky Mountains by a thousand or more feet and as much as 4300 feet. St. Helena came from the sea floor at 15,700 feet to the surface, and then another 2600 feet above that—an 18,300-foot rise. There is water in this ocean as deep as 27,000 feet, and as deep as 36,000 feet in the Pacific. We’ve had no company of any kind in more than two weeks, no ship, no airplanes (that we could see by Mark-1 Eye Balls, or radar), no island…only water, and that in a lesser sea, but friend, it is big enough. For two weeks, we had some kind of bird with us, a big fellow, but not an albatross. Some of the crew saw whales blowing yesterday, but not I. However, last night I DID see a young, wealthy mermaid…

I saw a lovely mermaid,

She paid me lots of mind,

She seemed to be so unafraid,

As if she knew my kind.

She asked if we could marry;

I’d take her far from here,

But that’s a load to carry—

Despite her looks so dear.

She was really very pretty;

I think I could be led,

But I really wasn’t ready,

This lovely lass to wed.

I told her of the men at sea,

and how she’d made her mark.

“The only male that chases me

Is any kind of shark.”

‘Twas tough, the way her hand was played,

And so I made a wish:

That none of that sweet mermaid

Was ever made of fish.

(can you guess the author? my modesty prevents me…)

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

44^th Day: 0026 hrs LT position is -30° 23.5 by 0°00.0’ E; we have crossed the Prime Meridian. Signs have now changed three times since Corpus, which was positive north and negative east. At the equator we went negative north and negative east, and now we are negative north and positive east. An even more important fact follows. In a test using three neutral and disinterested lavatories at 30 degrees south, water drained clockwise once, and counterclockwise twice. Due to pitching and rolling, I can not be sure that the reverse of lavatory physics is true down here, so I will offer this postulate: The Coriolis affect may be 2/3^rd true

We have hit the tail end of a cold front, and it is windy; gusts up to thirty knots. It is cool to cold out there, and the ocean has whipped up to kick us around. It is a rough ride again, mostly in pitch, which means my bed will dump my pate into the head board, and then swat my feet at the foot board…bonk, thump, bonk, thump, bon

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

45^th day: we are at -31° 9.4’ and + 3° 11.1’. I am in a wind-down mode, kind of let down…not a depression, but a funk. A long job is finished, and storms and seas for this long trip become a memory. Already, I have tickets to Singapore on March 2. So the work continues, and I am fortunate in the climate we have found ourselves in, but I would like more time off to do my own things.

A great sea monster lived at each end of the Straits of Messina, between Sicily and Italy. One was Scylla, who had a large head on six long necks, and she feasted on sailors six at a time. She lived on a great rock that went out into the sea. The other was Charybdis, formerly the beautiful naiad daughter of Poseidon and who had been supportive of her father against Zeus. She had ridden the storm and became the surge that devoured beaches and cities, claiming much new land for Poseidon. Zeus became enraged and turned her into a sea monster, a giant bladder, on the other end of the strait from Scylla. This monster inhaled huge quantities of sea water three times a day and spewed it back out, thus creating immense whirlpools. Odysseus had to choose which monster (being, as he was, caught between a rock and a whirlpool) he would favor in passing his ship toward home. The distance between the two monsters was only a bow shot, so one of them would affect the ship. He chose Scylla, the many-headed monster, even though he was assured of losing at least six men. He reasoned that there was too much chance that Charybdis would devour the ship and its crew entirely. The Greeks proceeded through the strait nearer Scylla, and her six long necks reached down, and each great maw took a man and ate him. The crew, of course, second-guessed Odysseus.

Now, I need to go to the Straits of Messina to see which way that whirlpool turns, and then I must come back down here and find a whirlpool and see which way IT turns. Then we’ll know for sure: Coriolis is, or he ain’t. According to my calculations, he two thirds is. I performed the tie-breaker regarding direction of turn in the lavatory of my own state room, but that drain is such that it doesn’t pull enough water to make a whirlpool. However, in the event that the drain is not being influenced by a restriction, but rather the earth’s rotation, I am hedging my bet in favor of Coriolis to 75%. If you don’t agree with this, then do your own physics!

Another Love Story

Friday, February 06, 2009
Clocks have been set forward another hour to -6 at CST, 0144 hrs, 7.4 knots and we are equidistant from South America and Africa, 1560 NM to either one. St. Helena remains the nearest landfall. We are 24° 31.2’ south and 12° 9’ west. This is day 40. Our time zone is GMT.

An afterthought: Anything to do with Napoleon has been too-well documented, so much so that the facts are hard to ferret. However, not too long after the events of his Russian invasion of 1812 was written the finest novel I ever read and the most accurate historical novel of its kind—War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy. It is singularly superb in its prose and story, and the war is entirely accurate, at least from a Russian point of view. If reading a Russian writer scares you, the Histories by Will and Ariel Durant is good, if bone-dry. It is my hope to only list the exceptional books that I have read. I like Calvin and Hobbs, but can’t fit it in. Pogo, too.

40th day: S26° 40.8’ and W8° 36’. There is no stew in the pot today; Maybe tomorrow. Today, I am reading book 2 of the Farseer Trilogy of Robin Hobb. This is a superlative story, and is followed by the Tawny Man Trilogy. For great entertainment, really good stories, try it. I may not write again until I have finished them. One might see, above, that we are approaching the Prime Meridian, zero degrees longitude, where I believe that the appropriate celebration is a nap.

Sunday, February 08, 2009
41st day: we are moving well at 8.5 knots in rough seas, and becoming larger. Ship’s 0100 LT coordinates are: S27° 50.1’ and 6° 40.7’ west. We should arrive in Cape Town next Sunday. Crew is ready, and so am I.

Is this still a love story? After you read it, let me know.
Raul was a slight, thin man, never strong. His will was strong, and his attack on life on his own terms was very strong, but his injuries placed limits on him, even though he ignored them—or so it appeared. That he was in love with his family was apparent in everything he did, or said. Raul was a “good” magnet, causing the good in those around him to rise to his expectations. Imelda lived with him and adored him, as did little Toya.

Imelda found not only a romantic love, but an ideal in her marriage. She sorrowed for his missing limbs and his hurts, but she was not certain that she would change a thing. She worked and brought home a small living. Raul received a stipend from the VA every month and worked as much as he could. As a family, they eked by, but there was rarely anything left over. She assumed the mantel of wife and mother: she babied him as much as he would tolerate. He allowed that because he knew she profited from it, but he had pride enough to set limits. He let her help him in virtually anything, but he did not depend upon it: if he thought he could do a thing, then he tried to do it himself. There was sunshine in the man. He radiated an aura of perfect balance that transcended pity or duty, a heat of personality that one enjoyed. Somebody helped to do a chore because the chore needed doing, not because Raul had no hands.

Another veteran, Horace Wielder, observed Raul working the grounds at the VA hospital and knew that it was good, done more for the good of the doer than the little income it would bring. Horace owned a large nursery and had knowledge of such things, so he approached Raul with an offer of a job, part time at first, then “we’ll see.” Raul accepted but with the proviso that he could continue his VA work. The arrangement was successful for both men. In time Horace came to rely on Raul.

A shipment of shrubs with needle points, perhaps holly, came to Horace’s nursery, and he called upon Raul to trim and shape them. Raul agreed to come the following day, but Benny worked late and Raul had no ride, so he missed the appointment. After dinner, the brothers drove Benny’s old red truck by the nursery, in case Horace was still there. He was not, but the shipment was near the fence and could be done in an hour or two. Benny had a ladder, so the men went over the fence. Benny carried the needed tools, and Raul went to work.

A police cruiser drove by and saw two men behind the nursery’s fence, and the cops stopped—as they should have—to investigate. I have lost the slighter one’s name now, but the big guy’s name was Tony Cusano. Before this tragi-comedy proceeds, be clear that both of these policemen were good guys and good cops. They came over the fence with flash lights.

Benny saw them and told Raul: “we gotta go man. Here come the cops.”
Raul: “We ain’t doin’ nothing wrong. I work for Mr. Horace.”
Benny: ”Well, it’s too late, anyway. They’re here.”
Slight one: “What are you boys doing here tonight?”
Benny: “He’s working, man, and I gave him a ride here. He’s my brother.” Raul had had his prosthetic hands deep inside a bush. He nodded hello.
Cusano: “Stand up, buddy. We need to talk to you.” Raul scrabbled up out of the bush and straightened before the big cop. Raul read the man’s name tag, but he read it slightly wrong.
Raul: “Hey, Police—you know what your name is in Spanish? It’s WORM.” And he giggled.
Cusano did not think it witty. Raul raised his aluminum arm to point out the man’s nametag. Cusano saw metal, assumed gun, and he cracked the small Latin hard across the head with his night stick. Raul didn’t fall to the ground, nor crumple. He kind of wilted, his big brown eyes rolling up and showing white, and he lay on the ground bleeding and twitching one leg. It was more than Benny could comprehend and he cried out his brother’s name, “Raul, NOOOOO!” and he went to his knees and to his brother’s aid. Reflexively, the smallish cop kicked him before he realized the move was non-threatening, rolling Benny over the top of Raul. Benny scrabbled back immediately, paying no mind to either cop, and he cradled Raul’s head in his lap, rocking back and forth with big tears rolling quietly down his cheek.

Cusano saw the damage he wrought, and he comprehended too late that the little man he had clubbed had no arms and no hands. He dropped the night stick and bent down to check the big lump and split skin on the small guy. “My God! What have I DONE!” was his soft, choked cry. He checked pulse and said to Benny:
“Let’s get him to a hospital. You hold the gate and open the car. I’ll carry him. You get in the front seat.”
Benny said nothing, crying silently, but did has he was told. When Cusano placed Raul in the back seat, he noticed that Raul had no leg, either, and it undid him. He came to pieces, one piece at a time. He recalled an incident from a week before in which an innocent young pregnant woman was trampled in a foot chase with a thug.

As they drove, Cusano questioned Benny:
“How did he lose his limbs?”
“They was blowed off in the war.” Cusano had been a rifleman in Vietnam several years earlier. “Raul worked in Two Corps. He was a hero. We got the General’s stuff on our wall, and a bunch of medals.”

Cusano’s grief was palpable, and the more he heard, the worse he felt. “What were you doing at that nursery, for crying out loud!”
“That’s Raul’s job. Mr. Horace hired him to fix those sharp plants. That’s what he was doing. Me? I was the driver and the helper, but Raul can reach in those places easy, and real arms can’t.”
Cusano said, “I hate this job. All I see is pain. All I do is make pain. I am sorry, Buddy, that I hurt your brother, and I will do everything I can to help make him well.”

Raul had a concussion. His vision was affected, and his head was swollen and blue with a nasty pucker, but he came back to us. When I heard about it, I went up to see him in the hospital, and he was happy and held no grudges. He told me about the cop whose name was “worm” and laughed all over again. Then he said that the cop was very sorry to have hurt him. I looked at the little man, beat to hell, body parts missing, head all discolored, scars all over his body. His eyes were bright, and he smiled, but I could not help but feel that one more nail had been selected for his coffin.

He asked; “Do you know what is so funny, Major Griffith? His name isn’t really Gusano. It’s Cusano. Gusano means “worm.” I don’t think “Cusano” is Spanish—don’t know what it means.” And he laughed merrily, like little brass cymbals.

His room was filled with flowers, mostly from Horace, but from a surprising number of people. Toya and Imelda spent two entire days with him, but rather than sick room, it took on an air of kindergarten. Such happiness and childish fun. Benny was there. Cusano almost made a pest of himself with food, flowers, games, and good cheer, but inside he wept. He and I talked some, and I felt bad for the man. His heart was good, and his courage undeniable, but his hard-earned Vietnam cynicism came up short, and he hurt inside (Can you hear it? "Don't mean nuthin"). I heard later that he quit the police force and left town, but I don’t know where he went or what happened to him. I do know how it feels to carry the burden of loss and guilt, though, and its weight can not be borne without bending you. Tony Cusano was bent double.

St. Helena

Thursday, February 05, 2009
This is the 39th day at S22° 51.2’ and W14° 51.6, sailing at 7.5 knots with 1880 NM to Cape Town remaining.

The nearest land to our location is St. Helena Island, off to the northeast some 720 NM. One might say that we are remote. That island is one of the remotest plots of land on earth, and that is why Napoleon was imprisoned there. It lies over 700 miles from the nearest land, the Ascension Islands, 1200 miles from Africa and 1800 miles from South America. In the modern era, one scheduled liner from Cape Town stops with mail and cargo once a month. In 2010, there will be an airport available, and limited air service will begin.



A seamount is a deep ocean mountain that rises at least 1000 meters above the sea floor, but does not reach the surface, and hence is not an island. There are two seamounts near St. Helena. All three are composite volcanoes. The island was discovered by the Portuguese in 1502, but was taken and held by the British in1653, becoming the remotest penal colony on earth.

Aboard his prison ship, the first thing Napoleon would have seen of his new home was Diana Peak, which leaps out of the ocean some 2600 feet and can be seen from forty or more miles distance on a good, clear day. Some of the cliffs of the island rise sheer out of the ocean for a thousand feet. The land mass itself is only 10X6 miles and is rough, undulating country. Names of prominent points hint at its character: Lot, Lots Wife, and Gates of Chaos. Climate is dry subtropical in the coastal and lower areas, with annual rainfall running only four to ten inches a year. The central hills may receive as much as 40 inches per year, so there are a lot of washes and canyons. Today’s population is about 6000 highly subsidized Brits. During Napoleon’s stay it was fewer civilians, but a substantial garrison of troops to guard their infamous prisoner and to defend the Commonwealth’s island. Defense was made simpler by the natural size of the seas and the terrain. There was only one suitable landing for ships. That was Jamestown, which was well protected by big guns. Elsewhere, the island was too jutty, too rough, and combined with heavy sea swells to have made landing a sailing ship impossible.

Napoleon abdicated his throne after a series of losses, primarily of the debacle in Russia, a former admirer. Napoleon’s invasion succeeded, but the Battle of Borodino did him great damage, and the Russians would not capitulate. Napoleon took Moscow, but the natives commenced burning it. Light on supplies and long on a logistics trail, he was forced to withdraw during a very bad winter and was sniped and attacked furiously and incessantly by Russians, who also scorched the earth ahead of the retreating French army. Napoleon came to Russia with a Grande Armee of 400,000. When he at last retreated to Paris, his army was down to about 10,000. Those missing had suffered miserable fates by freezing, or starving, or being mutilated, or all. Furthermore, his war in Spain continued to go badly, as the Spaniards chose to fight. Wellington slipped ashore in nearby Portugal and marched inland, steadily increasing the size of his British Army, which fought its way into France. Napoleon lost popular support and abdicated his throne after Paris surrendered without a fight. He was exiled to Elba, an Italian island and was accompanied by 1100 men, French soldiers who were his body guard. As well, he had a large house-hold staff of French people. He was allowed to be emperor of Elba, to make laws and administer governance. That was not enough, and his thoughts returned to France.

He and 600 of his “body guard” slipped ashore in France and rallied forces to him, many of whom were still loyal, and many of whom deserted the new army of King Louis XVIII, another Bourbon king, and the last. Very shortly Napoleon’s new Grand Armee came to be 280,000 soldiers, and Napoleon penned a note to the king that read, “Dear Brother, please stop sending troops. I have enough.” However, he had no external support and carried his burden alone with five of his loyal marshals.

Wellington was in Belgium with 130,000 and Blucher’s Prussians approaching his flank. Napoleon moved with lightning speed, a stroke of genius from former times, and split the British and Prussian Armies. It was his strategy to split those armies and for his own army to reduce Wellington. It was necessary for Marshal Ney to attack and scatter the Prussians, but his performance was lacking and he was held up at a critical junction, allowing Blucher to withdraw in good order.

Napoleon attacked Wellington in force and had the upper hand when Blucher’s army unexpectedly showed up (the result of Ney’s lackluster performance),and attacked Napoleon’s flank, thus settling the issue. The Grande Armee was defeated and Napoleon split for Paris, where five days later, he abdicated, but this time it was permanent. He was taken to remote St. Helena with a modest house-hold staff and four of his most loyal officers and two of their wives . He lived in an adequate—if non-palatial— abode on top of a rise overlooking very much very deep ocean. The Atlantic quickly drops to a depth of 15,700 feet just off St. Helena. Photos of that house and St. Helena are attached. He lived reasonably well there for six years, dying of uncertain causes in 1821 at 51 years of age. His quarters remain, as do two fine museums. His original tomb is fenced in and well-kept to this day, but Napoleon has been exhumed and transplanted in Paris.

Napoleon aided the United States in 1803 by selling to us the Louisiana Territory for a sum of $15,000,000. This transaction was Thomas Jefferson’s apex, although some in Congress wished to void it as “unconstitutional,” being haughty and stupid as always. Originally a French possession, it was ceded to Spain in 1762 as the war between France and England stewed. Napoleon recovered the land to French possession secretly in 1803 by the Treaty of Ildefonso. Weeks later he sold it to the US and penned the words:
“The accession of territory affirms forever the power of the United States, and I have given England a maritime rival who sooner or later will humble her pride.”
The Louisiana Purchase amounted to 828,000 square miles and increased the size of the United States at the time by 23 per cent.

Beowulf and Other Mystical Concepts

Tuesday, February 03, 2009
-19° 51.7’ / -19° 39’ at 7.6 knots. No outstanding activity occurs today. Now there follows a snippet of work from 1500 years ago which—among other things—discusses the extinction of a people:
v. 111…
Many fine heirlooms in a stone house were stowed
From a high-born rich race, disappeared long ago.
They had buried their riches in the ancient old cache,
But death took them over, returned them to ash.
At last only one remained of their race,
And he knew his own fate would be death’s cold embrace.
A barrow stood waiting, a new one, I’m told—
Hewn from the stone to hide all their gold.
This keeper assured that the treasure was hid
And wouldn’t be scattered, or put up for bid.
He said a few words before he lay down:
“All this fine treasure we took from the ground;
Return I it now to where it began:
Mined from the earth by honorable men.
All of my clan has been ruined by war.
They went down to their deaths from here not too far,
And now I’m the last, the last of them all.
Soon I’ll lie down to do death’s certain call,
To snuff out my life--forever to sleep—
And for all of these treasures, there’s no one to keep:
Nobody left to carry a sword;
Nobody left to utter a word;
Nobody left to polish a plate;
Nobody left to sweep up the grate;
Nobody left to shine on a cup,
And nobody left the beds to make up.
Nobody here, the great fires to stoke—
All of their bodies have gone up in smoke.
The people departed, their gear hasped with gold—
Now stripped of its hoops, as time made it old.
The shiner of helmets and war masks now sleeps.
Mail worn in victories and in some defeats,
Through shield-collapse or cut of sword on owner or on borrower,
Decaying now as doth the corpse of that departed warrior:
Nor web mail worn upon their backs—
Nor weapons stowed in neat-done stacks;
Nor trembling harp, nor song of sage—
This ending of our history’s page:
No tumbling hawk within the hall,
And no swift horse from which to fall—
No people left, nor son, nor daughter—
Lost from pillage and from slaughter.”
And so he moved about his world at night or early morn,
Wishing he had died with them, or else had not been born.
Alone, deserted, lamenting, too, one thing he understood:
He’d stand no more when death came down and drained his heart of blood.

That is verse 111, my own translation, of Beowulf, in the scene just before the old harrower dragon discovers their great treasure den. Recall that Beowulf is the earliest work extant in the English language. I have great objection to the recent movie: they got very far from the story, changed the history and the lessons. Another thing I learned lately is that the first work signed by its author was the Sumerian epic of Gilgamesh, and its author was Shin-eqi-unninni who wrote for King Ashurbanipal. His work was in cuneiform and is the oldest signature known. Gilgamesh came from Uruk over 2700 BC, and that story is the origin of the great flood.

The Beowulf movie depicted Grendl’s mother as a wicked beauty (Angelina Jolie, near nude) who seduced the Danish kings (Hrothgar, et al) and Beowulf. In the original (verses 75-78) she was described as hell-hag, witch, or hell’s bitch, and she was almost as gargantuan as her hideous son. Her attack on Hrothgtar’s mead hall was only slightly less violent than Grindl’s. This mother and son, according to the original, came from Cain’s seed, discarded by God and banished from the world of men. All were either giants or monsters, but the giants had been slain. In the hell-hag’s cave at the bottom of the deeps was the great sword above her mantle that had belonged to a giant. No man could swing it, save Beowulf. It was with this sword that Beowulf decapitated her. She had been too scaly and tough for his own heirloom sword to cut when he smote her head: instead, she broke its blade. No reference exists in Beowulf along Christian lines, but it is filled with Old Testament good and evil, where the chief merchant of good is God Himself. The scale of wars and killing is also Old Testamential—bloody, total, no quarter given, and frequent. One side is always in the right and usually had been victimized by an earlier event involving the opposite side.

The dragon also served an entirely separate purpose in Beowulf, the epic. The movie construes it as an offspring of the beautiful witch and the Hero. It was not: it embodied a separate moral that moved the tale along to Beowulf’s death and the subsequent subduction of his country, Geatland. Beowulf never married, and was celebate as far as we know. The prelude to the battle between Beowulf and the old enamel-scaled dragon establishes that Beowulf’s pride has become too great, yet he has a premonition of his death. As the battle rages, it is not Beowulf who renders the telling blow to the dragon, but his most loyal mortal soldier and kinsman, Wiglaf. Had not Wiglaf been courageous enough to fly beneath the dragon’s fire and attack, Beowulf would have been defeated. For fifty years, Beowulf had chosen the finest men to be his select soldiers, and he treated them special. So special, in fact, that they got soft and were no help at all in the battle. Wiglaf could not rally them: that is a signal that Geatland was in danger. So, the movie sucked, as they so often do, but the old tale is wonderful…and it is the oldest one in our language.

Wednesday, February 04, 2009
The 38th day at sea. We are at -21° 14’ and –17° 27.6’. Our speed is 7.8 knots, and we shall be equidistant from land at South America from the nearest land in Africa when we reach -13° 5’ and -24° 2’, and that distance will be 1560 NM either way. We are now 2000 NM from Cape Town.

I like that name, “Cape Town”. It conjures mystery of place and seduces the mind’s eye. My imagination declares it a good place, a place that gives hope that the journey between oceans is possible, the hard part is done. There is an old song, “Far Away Places, With Strange-Sounding Names” I call to mind. Think of Samarkand, the Silk Road, Pergamum…places more alive in the imagination than on the map. Maps set limits: imaginations have none, so discard the map and think of south pole, or Kabenda, or Babylon, or Nineveh, or a spot like the point of no return, or Crazy Woman VORTAC. Mystic places remain so without a map, without too much knowledge. Minds need to imagine: what is it like? What would one see? What manner of creatures lives here? What made the woman crazy (it was the wind, they say)? Imagine having 22,000 feet of water below you. What’s down there? What does it look like? How many gallons is that? Imagine a spice caravan on the silk road: what do they carry, what do they seek? What manner of country and danger are they seeing? How dark the skies, how many stars a thousand years ago? There is a place in Tibet at the headwaters of what becomes the Brahmaputra River, the Yarlung Tsangpo, that can be observed only with greatest effort.



The water is so turbulent and the volume so great that no man has ever been able to run it, so it remains virgin, powerful beyond any measure, remote at the extreme, and in an environment unfriendly to human kind. I would love too see it, to hear it thunder, to understand something about its magnificent power…and yet I so want it to remain virgin, undammed, undiminished by millions of grubby little hands, free of tourists and developers. When John Wesley Powell set out to discover the great canyon of the Colorado, he and his men camped with the Indians on the Green River above the confluence of the two rivers. The Chief told Powell the name of the (Grand) canyon in his tongue and translated it as “mans go in, don’t come out.” That was, of course, before the river had been dammed and diminished, perhaps ruined at the Glen Canyon seeps. Below the Boulder Dam, the river is essentially emasculated, nothing left to give after lighting up Las Vegas and Los Angeles. Powell shot 40-foot rapids in brown, turbulent water. Several men died. A few abandoned the raft and tried to climb out, and all but one of them died. The survivor was found by Indians and spared because he was “tetched in the head”. That is also a good book, by Powell. Nowadays, the river meanders through the Grand Canyon all green and blue, no significant rapids, trails in and out of the depths. The first time I saw it, it was brown and mean. There were speakers (like old drive-in movie speakers) which transmitted the roar of the river to an observer on the rim. Huge, and now mostly tame.

And the happiest name-place of all? The Cape of Good Hope. That is a wonderful name, intimating as it does that things might become better now, that the terrors of the seas and nights of dread and survival are now going to release you. A fair wind will blow, and the safety of your body is assured. When I build my town, it will not be named like my first two were: Litter Barrel and Resume Speed. Rather, I shall name it Good Hope.


Well, shoot. That doesn’t do it, either. Something that is mysterious in “Cape” is missing here. Perhaps I can name it Cape of Good Hope Town: that way we get both capes in there. Something misses, and that is not good. Tell me, what do you suggest? Remember, it must be mysterious, a conjurer of great imaginings, pleasing to the ear and to the mind’s eye. This is a bit like titling a book properly. Probably, we need a far-away place with a strange-sounding name.

One far-away place—from anywhere—is St. Helena.

Tuesday, February 03, 2009
-19° 51.7’ / -19° 39’ at 7.6 knots. No outstanding activity occurs today. Now there follows a snippet of work from 1500 years ago which—among other things—discusses the extinction of a people:
v. 111…
Many fine heirlooms in a stone house were stowed
From a high-born rich race, disappeared long ago.
They had buried their riches in the ancient old cache,
But death took them over, returned them to ash.
At last only one remained of their race,
And he knew his own fate would be death’s cold embrace.
A barrow stood waiting, a new one, I’m told—
Hewn from the stone to hide all their gold.
This keeper assured that the treasure was hid
And wouldn’t be scattered, or put up for bid.
He said a few words before he lay down:
“All this fine treasure we took from the ground;
Return I it now to where it began:
Mined from the earth by honorable men.
All of my clan has been ruined by war.
They went down to their deaths from here not too far,
And now I’m the last, the last of them all.
Soon I’ll lie down to do death’s certain call,
To snuff out my life--forever to sleep—
And for all of these treasures, there’s no one to keep:
Nobody left to carry a sword;
Nobody left to utter a word;
Nobody left to polish a plate;
Nobody left to sweep up the grate;
Nobody left to shine on a cup,
And nobody left the beds to make up.
Nobody here, the great fires to stoke—
All of their bodies have gone up in smoke.
The people departed, their gear hasped with gold—
Now stripped of its hoops, as time made it old.
The shiner of helmets and war masks now sleeps.
Mail worn in victories and in some defeats,
Through shield-collapse or cut of sword on owner or on borrower,
Decaying now as doth the corpse of that departed warrior:
Nor web mail worn upon their backs—
Nor weapons stowed in neat-done stacks;
Nor trembling harp, nor song of sage—
This ending of our history’s page:
No tumbling hawk within the hall,
And no swift horse from which to fall—
No people left, nor son, nor daughter—
Lost from pillage and from slaughter.”
And so he moved about his world at night or early morn,
Wishing he had died with them, or else had not been born.
Alone, deserted, lamenting, too, one thing he understood:
He’d stand no more when death came down and drained his heart of blood.

That is verse 111, my own translation, of Beowulf, in the scene just before the old harrower dragon discovers their great treasure den. Recall that Beowulf is the earliest work extant in the English language. I have great objection to the recent movie: they got very far from the story, changed the history and the lessons. Another thing I learned lately is that the first work signed by its author was the Sumerian epic of Gilgamesh, and its author was Shin-eqi-unninni who wrote for King Ashurbanipal. His work was in cuneiform and is the oldest signature known. Gilgamesh came from Uruk over 2700 BC, and that story is the origin of the great flood.

The Beowulf movie depicted Grendl’s mother as a wicked beauty (Angelina Jolie, near nude) who seduced the Danish kings (Hrothgar, et al) and Beowulf. In the original (verses 75-78) she was described as hell-hag, witch, or hell’s bitch, and she was almost as gargantuan as her hideous son. Her attack on Hrothgtar’s mead hall was only slightly less violent than Grindl’s. This mother and son, according to the original, came from Cain’s seed, discarded by God and banished from the world of men. All were either giants or monsters, but the giants had been slain. In the hell-hag’s cave at the bottom of the deeps was the great sword above her mantle that had belonged to a giant. No man could swing it, save Beowulf. It was with this sword that Beowulf decapitated her. She had been too scaly and tough for his own heirloom sword to cut when he smote her head: instead, she broke its blade. No reference exists in Beowulf along Christian lines, but it is filled with Old Testament good and evil, where the chief merchant of good is God Himself. The scale of wars and killing is also Old Testamential—bloody, total, no quarter given, and frequent. One side is always in the right and usually had been victimized by an earlier event involving the opposite side.

The dragon also served an entirely separate purpose in Beowulf, the epic. The movie construes it as an offspring of the beautiful witch and the Hero. It was not: it embodied a separate moral that moved the tale along to Beowulf’s death and the subsequent subduction of his country, Geatland. Beowulf never married, and was celebate as far as we know. The prelude to the battle between Beowulf and the old enamel-scaled dragon establishes that Beowulf’s pride has become too great, yet he has a premonition of his death. As the battle rages, it is not Beowulf who renders the telling blow to the dragon, but his most loyal mortal soldier and kinsman, Wiglaf. Had not Wiglaf been courageous enough to fly beneath the dragon’s fire and attack, Beowulf would have been defeated. For fifty years, Beowulf had chosen the finest men to be his select soldiers, and he treated them special. So special, in fact, that they got soft and were no help at all in the battle. Wiglaf could not rally them: that is a signal that Geatland was in danger. So, the movie sucked, as they so often do, but the old tale is wonderful…and it is the oldest one in our language.

Wednesday, February 04, 2009
The 38th day at sea. We are at -21° 14’ and –17° 27.6’. Our speed is 7.8 knots, and we shall be equidistant from land at South America from the nearest land in Africa when we reach -13° 5’ and -24° 2’, and that distance will be 1560 NM either way. We are now 2000 NM from Cape Town.

I like that name, “Cape Town”. It conjures mystery of place and seduces the mind’s eye. My imagination declares it a good place, a place that gives hope that the journey between oceans is possible, the hard part is done. There is an old song, “Far Away Places, With Strange-Sounding Names” I call to mind. Think of Samarkand, the Silk Road, Pergamum…places more alive in the imagination than on the map. Maps set limits: imaginations have none, so discard the map and think of south pole, or Kabenda, or Babylon, or Nineveh, or a spot like the point of no return, or Crazy Woman VORTAC. Mystic places remain so without a map, without too much knowledge. Minds need to imagine: what is it like? What would one see? What manner of creatures lives here? What made the woman crazy (it was the wind, they say)? Imagine having 22,000 feet of water below you. What’s down there? What does it look like? How many gallons is that? Imagine a spice caravan on the silk road: what do they carry, what do they seek? What manner of country and danger are they seeing? How dark the skies, how many stars a thousand years ago? There is a place in Tibet at the headwaters of what becomes the Brahmaputra River, the Yarlung Tsangpo, that can be observed only with greatest effort. The water is so turbulent and the volume so great that no man has ever been able to run it, so it remains virgin, powerful beyond any measure, remote at the extreme, and in an environment unfriendly to human kind. I would love too see it, to hear it thunder, to understand something about its magnificent power…and yet I so want it to remain virgin, undammed, undiminished by millions of grubby little hands, free of tourists and developers. When John Wesley Powell set out to discover the great canyon of the Colorado, he and his men camped with the Indians on the Green River above the confluence of the two rivers. The Chief told Powell the name of the (Grand) canyon in his tongue and translated it as “mans go in, don’t come out.” That was, of course, before the river had been dammed and diminished, perhaps ruined at the Glen Canyon seeps. Below the Boulder Dam, the river is essentially emasculated, nothing left to give after lighting up Las Vegas and Los Angeles. Powell shot 40-foot rapids in brown, turbulent water. Several men died. A few abandoned the raft and tried to climb out, and all but one of them died. The survivor was found by Indians and spared because he was “tetched in the head”. That is also a good book, by Powell. Nowadays, the river meanders through the Grand Canyon all green and blue, no significant rapids, trails in and out of the depths. The first time I saw it, it was brown and mean. There were speakers (like old drive-in movie speakers) which transmitted the roar of the river to an observer on the rim. Huge, and now mostly tame.

And the happiest name-place of all? The Cape of Good Hope. That is a wonderful name, intimating as it does that things might become better now, that the terrors of the seas and nights of dread and survival are now going to release you. A fair wind will blow, and the safety of your body is assured. When I build my town, it will not be named like my first two were: Litter Barrel and Resume Speed. Rather, I shall name it Good Hope.

Bronze Man

Saturday, January 31, 2009
It is 0630 hrs on the 34th day. Local time is GMT-1; CST = GMT-6, so I am five hours ahead of home. I finished writing the comments above this morning. I hope this material is entertaining reading.

Sunday, February 1, 2009
35th day: 0315 hrs LT We are 700 NM from the nearest land, which would be Recife, in Brazil. It is north west and lies slightly closer now than Fernando, and we are on course for way point 11, yet 260 NM from here. Equatorial environments are being left behind. The barometer is rising, and we expect seas to become rougher and swells longer and larger. The end of the trip, however, is in sight, and it looks as if Cape Town on February 15 is good. Old one-legged Ahab would be stumping merrily in these seas.

Dennis Lange was “Bronze Man”, a surfer from Nebraska, unlikely as that sounds. He wore a gold medallion around his neck, and longer than regulation blond hair. He made captain, and that was enough. When his war was over, he was leaving the service (AF) and going back to school. His aim was to be a college-level track and field coach, himself having been a fine 400-meter man (that event had recently been the 440-yard dash, but track went metric) and a champ at the discus, which I believe was still measured in feet. He was engaged to Patrice, whose last name escapes me, and he had 37 days to DROS.

That became an eventful day. He was in a two-ship, carrying supplies and ammunition to a local indigenous unit along the Laotian cordillera. That was always a dangerous place, owned by the bad guys. He saw a group of men gathered near his landing zone (LZ) and preceded his wingman into the landing. The group of soldiers came running to the chopper, all carrying AK 47s. Dennis told the crew to start throwing stuff out, as if resupplying them, and to yell that they would be back with food and water in an hour. It was indeed a platoon of communist soldiers, who immediately began opening Christmas. As the helicopter lifted off, the crew waved and blew kisses to the motley gang below, who waved back and grinned hugely. What a haul, and more coming! The unit that was supposed to have received those supplies lay dead a quarter mile away, victims of the gang and its company. The friendlies never even got a radio message out, and it was days before they were found. Two survivors hiked back to a base camp and reported the event: ambush by superior numbers and high explosives.

The gang was supposed to ambush the resupply unit, but was not in place when that weird scene went forward. As it became apparent that the second helicopter was not going to land, they opened fire on both aircraft, which were at the limit of AK range. However, down in the woods was a .51caliber heavy machine gun, and a single round from it plinked through the thin aluminum skin of Acorn 22 and struck the pilot, Bronze Man, behind the right knee. It mangled the leg, most of which was butchered. The calf was joined by a slim piece of flesh inside the knee cap. Most of the calf was blown out, and this severed the femoral artery; Captain Lange was bleeding out.

Any really good military unit is that way because its NCOs make it so. Acorn flight had such a man aboard, and he saved Captain Lange. He pulled Lange out of the seat as the other pilot flew the aircraft. Lange was laid on the floor, where a tourniquet was applied tightly to stop the bleeding: the leg was lost, anyway. Saline and blood plasma were administered, plus a sizeable dose of morphine. The Bronze Man lived all the way to the hospital, where he was met and where the NCO washed his blood out with a hose. Captain Lange made it home.

He was in Denver, and I was at Colorado Springs, so I drove to Denver to visit him. He seemed to be doing well, still had some rehab going and had just received a new prosthetic that morning. It was more comfortable and easier to put on and take off. He removed the false leg while we were at his condo, setting the limb high on a book case. His remark was that he had a leg up on everybody else. Meanwhile it was cloudy and rainy outside and getting worse. We decided to take a cab downtown for dinner. By the time we got there (natives will know the place: three train cars stuck together in a very good restaurant), it was well and truly raining. The street was flooded, but we wore rain gear. I allowed Dennis to precede me, and he tried to run, old track star that he was. The street was slick and deep in water, and the wind blew hard out of a thunderstorm cell. It was enough to bowl him over, and he went sliding like a baseball player into the curb. It was not only a curb, but a storm drain. His bad leg went into it. I ran to help him, took him under the armpits and pulled him up, and we pulled the darned leg off. It, naturally, submerged immediately and was swept away—leg, foot, shoe, and sock—leaving two men standing there on three legs, wet as drowning puppies, and so surprised that nary word was uttered for a long moment and both of us stared at the flooded storm drain. “Well,” he said ruefully, “that takes me out of next week’s butt-kicking contest,” and we both howled, slapped our flanks, and hammered each other’s backs.

Directly in front of us, on the corner, was an upscale ladies apparel shop. Here comes the irony: the sales clerk and her manager were Vietnamese. We went into the shop to shed a little water and to figure out what to do. The tiny sales lady approached, cynically, but here she came:
“I hepp you, yes?”
“No, we need to rest a minute. He just lost his leg.”
“No; no hab legs heah”
“Well, do you have any knees?”
“No, no knee.”
“Well, what do you have?
“Got panny. Got boucoup pannies.”
“Then show us your panties.”
“No. You bad GI!”
That got it started, the banter:
“You got big shoe?”
“No, got little.”
“You hab lettuce heads?”
“No. Got nice leddies hats. No heads.”
“You got fish heads and lice?”
“No. You numbah ten. You go home now.”

This reminded me of a similar conversation in Thailand, at the NKP officers’ open mess. A young and somewhat attractive Thai waitress came:
“I take you ordah?”
“BLT, please.”
“Any ting else?”
“Coke”
“You want one, two BLT?”
“One”
In a little while, here she came and deposited a slim-looking sandwich in front of me. I opened it up to find no bacon on it, and there was a glass of tea:
“No bacon. I want BLT…and a coke…”
“No hab B” she said, “No hab C,” and she walked off. I ate an LT sandwich with tea, no B, no C.

At any rate, the Vietnamese/Nebrakan sales lady had a point. We called a taxi and returned to Dennis' condo, soaking wet, hungry, and generally put out, but we had shared a few laughs. He had a spare leg, his old one, so we drove to Burger King and finished less finely than planned. Oh, Patrice? She didn’t want an invalid, especially one hurt in that Asian war. Bronze Man finished his PhD at Kansas and was a professor at Nebraska, last I heard, and down to his last leg.

Monday, February 2, 2009
Our location this morning is -16° 38.4’ / -22° 42.4’ at 8.2 knots. Barometer is rising slowly, 29.89. Tempers and patience are short among the crew. Men are working hard; chipping, painting, welding, repairing, cleaning, replacing…This is the 36th day at sea for people who are used to working 14 days, and then going home. It is, in my estimation, a very good crew and completely dependable.

Plotting our progress will reveal a short distance traveled yesterday. There was trouble. At 0742, the starboard towline broke at the chain. It occurred just as I reduced thruster power upon direction from town. This, naturally, increased the tension on the line, and it separated. An emergency line had been attached to the towline (?), and it was attached onto the main deck hand-rails and wench. It was pulled loose, taking the hand-rail and cutting wiring, lines, and rope with it. It was amusing to see the dance unfold as to what happened, what failed, whose fault…that’s where the tap dance began, shifting the blame to something more inert. At the time, no one KNEW what had happened, but speculation was strong. It was certainly not the tow master’s fault, nor the sudden added tension, nor the tow vessel’s, so what’s left? Fatigue failure. When it first happened, there was a loud metallic bang and the vessel rocked suddenly: I thought the column had partially collapsed—a foolish thought, but this is political. My own considerable expertise in structural failures must go untapped as an opinion not wanted, nor do I wish to poke my head into the briar patch, so I did my job and left off my opinions after the first few moments. In truth, I have not seen the failed steel, so can not be sure. It probably was deficient, but the incident that broke it was tension.

That left us with a single tow vessel. We plugged along at 5 knots while recovering the broken tow line, and we still ran only four thrusters moderately. At 1106 hrs, that boat, the Sherpa, experienced a total blackout and lost all power. We quickly over-ran him and had to take evasive action, requiring additional generators and thrusters. I stopped the ship, but there was current, and the powerless tow was being pushed by it, and the heavy towline joining us together pulled at it significantly. That ended up as waltz around the south Atlantic until about 5 pm. Again, the crews are good and certainly up to the tasks. No one was injured and the only loss was a few hours.

When I came back to work at midnight, all was well: both tows towing, parted line repaired, two EMDs pulling at 70% on all thrusters. The separated Kinter links were replaced by new Kinter links, and we were steaming ahead. It is probable that those links were—and perhaps, ARE—faulty. These are the same tow lines that towed the Ensco 8500 from Singapore to Galveston, and then us from Corpus Christi to here.

Oh, they tried to pull this thing
With a silly piece of string,
Ginning little kilowatts—
Hardly worth their vacant thoughts.
Now I hate to sound too gruff,
But it wasn’t quite enough,
So the string was pulled in two,
And it stranded I and you.

--------------------------------------I made that up, too; can you tell?--------------------

Cambodia

Thursday, January 29, 2009
32nd day at sea, at -7° 35.9’ / -29° 9.2’, and our speed is 8 knots on a COG of 140. The barometer remains low, as is the rule near the equator, 29.77 and steady. Phones and internet went out again moments ago, and this one may be hard to repair.

Tim McElveen, the ET, has found a ground fault in the aft-looking antenna-receiver that can not be repaired. It is redundant to the one we have on the bow (forward-looking), so we can exchange them and probably come back online, but it will require a lot of work. This stuff was all supposedly replaced and the system upgraded by the vendor before we left. Fine job, fellas. Tim’s buddy, Jamie Ziegler, points out that he quit drinking about 35 days ago. I wonder if there is merit in abstention when it can’t be had, anyway. That is one for the ministers and philosophers to worry over: if lust in the heart is a sin, is desire for drunkenness also? Actually, I prefer a nap.

War has few redeeming qualities, but some men and women caught up in it see the world and reality differently. The world view is one of idealized beauty, without the taint of ugliness, or the sting of loss or fear. Their real world contains both extremes. It should be apparent from the previous story that I was awed by the country and the history of a place where blood and gore ran amok. In the real world, of course, events among cultures is always driven by politics, and politics must function without worry of truth or morality, yet office-seekers always appeal to those points. To me, that is why all politicians are dirty, some more than others. War, of course, is but an extension of politics, which most warriors rue. The impacts made on combat soldiers are much different from those made on diplomats. In the soldier’s world there is too much of two things: minutiae and the awesome, as in awesome firepower, or very long marches, or the daily frag order, or pointless formations. The term “your country” is also perceived differently. To a soldier, “your country” is an ideal, a conglomerate of home and siblings, school, friends, mom, and Uncle Sam. (Ever wonder why depictions of Uncle Sam are so benign, righteous, and innocent?) The diplomat knows that, and he uses the term to his advantage, while he himself realizes that “your country” mostly represents “your party affiliation” and has little to do with mom and apple pie, or good Uncle Sam. With that in mind, I shall presently write of some other areas of our special operations, Phnom Penh, Angkor, and Angkor Wat in what was once the principal power in southeast Asia, Kampuchea, and known to us then as Cambodia. Later, some soldiers serving kings over five thousand years ago will be targeted.

Some societies have become great, some will someday, some will fail, and many have failed. Great culturo-social orders have five things in common—four, according to Frank Herbert—but I added another one based on observations of many countries:

1. Proper laws made, then dispensed by proper judges:
2. Diligent study by their learned, that learning disseminated:
3. The applied industry of their masses:
4. Meaningful inculcation of their young:
5. The valor of their brave.

(Number 5 is not the one I added, but I would have…)If you have not read DUNE, by Frank Herbert, you have missed good literature and a very good education. Do yourself a favor and read that series, which is actually a lesson in ecology and over-population.
It is a private, deep emotion to stand at the utterly quiet base of a great monument that was built by teems of leading cultures and has passed beyond time and place, leaving art and architecture of tales and proceedings beyond our ken. Who will stand in our own country someday and wonder that? Will mankind, in its haste to murder one another, last long enough for us to pass into history? I don’t have the answers, but I can tell you about standing in the presence of one of heaven’s preferred cities—empty, beautiful, quiet, abandoned, mysterious, and impotent: Angkor. Others are Machu Picchu, Canyon de Chelly, Les Jarres, Chaco Canyon, Kasha-Katuwe, Aztec Ruins, Mesa Verde…and many more, strong, vibrant tribes and cultures now passed into oblivion, to be heard no more.

The five guidelines above provide a value quantity. If one be diluted, the whole is diluted, but so long as any persists, it is worth fighting—even dying—for. One certain pointer of failure in a culture is when that culture at large thinks that dying for any cause is foolish. They’ll be erased, one way or another (failure of all five rules, but especially number 5). Yet there is no honor in fighting without cause. When one checks out the thesaurus for “valor” all the synonyms are heroic and honorable. There actually is a right side and a wrong side in most conflicts, but sides should have predefined laws, societal mores, and judgments to assure the proper placement of emphases. Once the society has expressed its will, those goals should be tirelessly pursued. Society, not politicians, should be the great decision-makers, because it is populated by the five elements above. Political activity should be a streamline in that activation. It is always errant for one social/religious/political order to attempt to force its dogma on another. No reasonable excuse can ever be had for tyranny. No society should be subverted to the needs of the anti-social or criminal. Society must always be ready to swing its swords, whether they are of steel or of paper, and when the time comes, search out the enemy and nullify him.

Cambodia is generally flat, forested, and wet. It has a range of mountains on the border with Thailand, north of Siem Reap. A survey map reveals very large rivers and one variable-sized lake, Tonle Sap. The season determines the size of Tonle Sap. During the rainy season, water backs up out of the Mekong at Phnom Penh and fills the lake. The Tonle Sap River joins the lake to the Mekong, and it flows in the direction dictated by the season. Because the lake ebbs and rises annually, it constantly replenishes nutrients and is populated heavily by fish—enough to feed three million people as a staple. It has a large population of crocodiles, too. Those beasts provide the raw materials for food and leather. There are pens of the things at various bergs around the lake being fed and cared for until they reach the proper size, or breed. Then they become fashionable hand bags. There is also jungle, where monkeys, birds, elephants, and jungle critters of all sorts live, or hide. Those jungles hide armies, too, and have done so since before the Kingdom of the Khmer. When I was there, three armies vied for supremacy: the People’s Army of Vietnam (NVA), the Khmer Rouge, and the Khmer Army. Two were communists, but with differing goals. Up in Laos were also three armies: NVA, Pathet Lao, and Royal Laotian, of which two were communist with differing goals. Another neighbor of Cambodia was Vietnam, fielding four armies: NVA, Viet Cong, ARVN, and the US. There was a common thread to all this, the Ho Chi Minh Trail, where one terminus was at Sihanoukville, Cambodia. The other terminal was Hanoi/Haiphong. Note that there were sea ports at each end of the trail. The trail was the logistics system for North Vietnam to wage war on South Vietnam, while overrunning Laos and Cambodia to do so. The true antagonists were North Vietnam, who wanted to unify their country, and the United States, who wanted to prevent it. It embroiled four nations, discounting the USSR and China and minor allies, and eventually killed over five million souls. I doubted South Vietnam was worth it, and many felt that we fought on the wrong side. It goes back to the five elements, above, being violated—misapplied—by politicians on all fronts.

Friday, January 30, 2009
33rd day: -10° 21.2’ N and -27° 12’ E, 8.2 knots, track 144.

That is quite a preamble to a simple flying story. Sometimes I think that the war, the location, the losses, and the times scarred me, and I wonder if any combat soldier came back unscathed, and now I see the same things happening in Iraq and Afghanistan. Jean Larteguy (The Praetorians) wrote that an old glass-maker in Italy told Glatigny that sometimes the perfect glass in fine crystal gets a disease and, for no reason, just breaks. And we were crystal soldiers. In southeast Asia, we didn’t have post-traumatic stress syndrome yet. We were perfectly mentally healthy, without the least bit of depression. If one went to the shrink, or complained of nightmares, he was grounded or dismissed from the service, “for the good of the service”. I and people like me could not even wear name tags or rank when we fought the secret war, in order that the Government could have more “credible denial” (their term). If they claimed we didn’t belong to them, would they look after us when we were captured or shot down? No, but all its soldiers were emotionally well. That was the genre of the times, while we committed suicide, cried like girls, and muddled through jobs and marriages. That has changed now, thank God. When he comes back, your soldier will have a burden in his soul that he evermore must carry, this in addition to loss of limb or other injury. When we are young we control magic, and it glitters in our cupped hands. For each tragedy or heart-break that occurs, a glittering gem goes out. Finally, all the glitter is gone, and one is left holding empty hands in the dark, with grief and uncertainty his room mates—and the realization that life without the comforts of innocence and without your too-loved comrades is painful and empty. Combat is in no way similar to selling automobiles or insurance. War lives on flesh and blood, and whoever is close enough to combat will be devoured—maybe not eaten entirely, but at least partially so: every being—soldier, merchant, child, baby, monk, monkey, bird, tiger, tree, shrine... Combat is the most equal-opportunity vandal on earth: it cares nothing for anything.

War worries naught for shrines or holy places, either, and that is one of the great tragedies of any war. Cambodia—as did all Asia—possessed many fragile, lovely works of art and architecture, wats, museums, holy places, scenic places, ancient domains, wonderful mysteries, as you will see with the attached photos. Some of those wonderful things would catch one’s breath, inspire the mind, awe the senses, and the next week be destroyed without thought. Antoine de St-Exupěry wrote that he was astounded by the ambivalence of a 22 year-old lieutenant ordering that a stand of 400 year-old oak trees be cut down, so he would have a better field of fire against a transient enemy. Well, anyway…we were big boys when we signed on…now let’s go fly.

Phnom Penh is built around the site of five budas erected on a man-made mound that belonged to a wealthy widow, a grandmother. The mound was originally about 75 feet high and grassy. The Widow Penh invited certain monks and their followers to take up abode on her land, and thus the city began. It now has wide boulevards and a smattering of French colonial makeup, but much indigenous Asian archetecture and coloring. Flowers and trees grow lushly. The atmosphere feels of tropical coast, but it is not coast. It is two great rivers, the Mekong and the Tonle Sap. At Phnom Penh, the Mekong is perhaps two miles wide and 150 feet deep during the rainy season. It rises and causes the Tonle Sap River to back up, flowing in the opposite direction to fill up Lake Tonle Sap.

The Mekong comes down out of China from half-way up the Himalayas. Its head waters originate within a few miles, say a hundred, of four other major rivers of the world: the Yangtze, Brahmaputra, Ganges, and Irrawaddy. A bit further on begins the Salween, and further east, the Yellow. A lot of water comes out of those mountains.

By the time it passes on the east side of Phnom Penh, the Mekong is huge and lazy. The Tonle Sap joins it on the north side of the city, which thus lies in the elbow of two very large rivers. It is this that gives the atmosphere its sea-like quality. A hundred miles away, the south end of the lake begins and runs northwest for another hundred miles.

It was a beautiful city made up of people of small stature and friendly demeanor. They were industrious and arty, lots of French influence. French was still spoken there, with more and more speaking some English (American, actually). They were great admirers of Jacqueline Kennedy, and they prayed with their monks for a peaceful solution to the rebellion, and to be free. They loved Prince Sihanouk, as well as Elvis. There was, of course, a vibrant black market. Another industry was the making and selling of temple rubbings from Angkor Wat or Angkor Thom, perhaps other temples. I brought many of those home, and some of you have them. They are valuable now, so hang on to them. Always, there was the influence of great water, those two mighty streams that provided some security from the north and east, taxi, food, mercantile, shipping, and a hundred things. Otherwise, the city was surrounded by forests, and they were not secure. There came to be war brought to their doorsteps, great columns of black, sooty smoke rising up from the forest over there where a battle raged. Then, over there, was a pall of gray smoke—the burning oil of tanks and trucks, and over there was two columns of white smoke, victims being cremated, to meet sanitation requirements.

The US had no troops stationed in Cambodia that I am aware of, but we should have had, both there and in Laos, if we honestly wanted to make war on Hanoi. It was a poorly planned and executed war on our part, but this is for later. Our point in being in Phnom Penh was to plan an extraction of American diplomats in the event of sudden successful invasion of the city. That plan was built and titled Project Eagle Pull. We would fly into the soccer stadium with air support, etc, etc, and pick up all the dignitaries and VIP others, then fly out and abandon the city to its fate, which—as we know now—became one of absolute genocide: four million out of twelve million people were murdered by Pol Pot and his communist-backed regime. Pol Pot wanted to return to a totally agrarian nation, and his means were to eliminate scholars, builders, teachers, business people—anyone who had insufficient dealings with tilling the earth. His backers were the North Vietnamese. Pol Pot was a Khmer Rouge, a thuggish mass of poor-quality, but brutal, communist soldiers that required being propped up. It was also necessary, in keeping with communist dogma, for Pol Pot to “re-educate” the masses. Genocide was the solution. It was so bad, that in 1975, the NVA pulled the plug on Pol Pot and withdrew their support. His regime fell, but the damage was done. The Killing Fields really happened. Read The Killing Fields, by Christopher Hudson and look it up on the internet. Gruesome. (Jimmy Carter expected to PULL the Americans out of Tehran in a similar fashion, but that is a whole other book, too.)
As a special operations outfit, our chain of command was different. We frequently worked for/reported to the US Ambassador to whatever country we were working. We did, on occasion, support combat operations in Cambodia. We helped in a fight at Siem Reap, and again nearer Angkor Wat. I picked up the pilot of an A7 shot down between the combatants, but he’d been gut-shot and died quickly. I got into trouble for that one, since I was not on orders to recover that young captain. His boss, a brigadier general put a letter of commendation in my files, and my bosses backed off. We also recovered the cannon from his airplane. Later 1Lt Rocky Rovito, of the 40th ARRS, had an AFCS hydraulic seizure and failure on his HH-53. He and the crew rode it into Lake Tonle Sap, and none survived. We took divers (gutty fellows) to recover the bodies. They worked the wreckage while two or three choppers hovered overhead with guns ready to deal with crocodiles. None came, however, and we sent the bodies of those men to Graves and Registration, who sent them back home, where their service meant nothing and their deaths meant little, nor their lives, except to we few and mom and dad.

After the war, Jack Piroutek and Cliff Merrill both were killed in similar fashion in separate mishaps.