John Delach

In 2006, I decided to research a piece about a spectacular maritime accident that took place in New York harbor in the spring of 1973. The Sea Witch, a container ship was outbound from the Howland Hook, Staten Island terminal. The ship had just entered the Narrows when the steering mechanism failed causing it to veer toward one of the Staten Island anchorages and strike the fully laden tanker, Esso Brussels, igniting its cargo of crude oil. Locked together, both ships drifted under the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge before they grounded in Gravesend Bay off of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.

My initial searches were fruitless. When I Googled “Sea Witch,” the only match I made was for the Nineteenth Century Clipper Ship of the same name. I tried several different portals, each of them a dead end. Frustrated, I decided to visit the U.S. Maritime Academy’s library in Kings Point only to find that they too had a limited collection about the Sea Witch or the collision.

Finally, on an off-chance, I contacted the National Transportation Bureau’s Accident Investigation Bureau. That led me to a U.S. Coast Guard’s site where I discovered what I was seeking, the Coast Guard’s accident report. There it was right in front of me, their accident report.  Between a balky printer and an unreliable internet connection, I worried over downloading and printing out each of those forty-seven pages until it finished.

I now had the foundation for my piece. Next, I made my way to the newspaper room at main branch of the NY Public Library at Fifth Ave. and Forty-Second Street to copy the articles that ran in each newspaper’s Metropolitan Section.  I paid attention to The Staten Island Advance that focused on the accident as a local story.

One source led to another and slowly, the details I was seeking began to assemble. Still, I wasn’t satisfied relying principally on third-party reporting. One person’s name critical to telling this tale kept appearing, the pilot in charge of the Sea Witch when all hell broke loose, John T. (Jack) Cahill.

How to find him? I wrote a letter of introduction to the New York Harbor Pilots Association, the governing body for all licensed pilots, asking them to forward a second letter addressed to Cahill. My letter explained who I was and why I wanted to contact him.

Almost a month later my home phone rang while I was sitting in the kitchen. My hello triggered a rough voice that responded, “This is Jack Cahill, I understand you are looking for me?”

A week later found me heading west on I-78 almost to the Delaware River to meet Jack Cahill and discuss my project. He lived in retirement with his second wife, Andrea, who was of French extraction. Quite a scene, Cahill had a table full of folders that he didn’t choose to open while Andrea buzzed around the table in an obvious hostile mood.

I realized my situation was in doubt. Andrea didn’t want me in her home as she perceived me to be a threat to her man. If I couldn’t win here over, my visit would be a waste of time. I had to overcome her lack of trust in me.

I turned to her and said: “Mrs. Cahill, let me be assure you, from everything I have gathered about that night, your husband, Jack, was the true hero. If not for him, the Sea Witch crew would have perished. Let me make you both a pledge that I will not submit my story to any publication until Jack signs off on the content. If Jack doesn’t approve it, I will change it. If that doesn’t work, I will scrap it. To do otherwise would be a sin.” 

Her reaction was immediate and amazing. The clouds parted and the sun shone down. Andrea offered me coffee and a tray of biscuits before she left the room. Jack opened his files, showed me his remarkable photos and told me his story.

I drove home knowing I had something special. Professional Mariner magazine bought my story and published it. I was ecstatic, my first (and only) paid published piece. Jack Cahill’s first- person account gave it wings.

Once published, a copy quickly made its way onto Wikipedia. The original listings attributed the piece to me but as time went on and different organizations picked up on it, my identity faded away.

 Recently, I Googled the accident and found a serious expansion of my piece written for the fireboat “Fighter” museum. The author took complete license with what I had written yet retained my favorite line that I used to describe the initial conflagration when the ships collided: “…and the night exploded.”

I loved that line and this S.O.B. not only lifted what I wrote but took it out of sequence at his/hers convenience. Whoever you are: please note that plagiarism is and always will be plagiarism. Shame on you!

Truthfully, I really don’t mind.

I know that it was my effort that added this story to our collective memory. My baby, no one else’s. I conceived it and I birthed it.

Now my teenager is on her own. 

Never published on this blog, In June, I will give you, dear reader, my revised edition of my story in two parts

The dictionary defines irony as: “A state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often amusing as a result.”

The street definition of irony is: “You really can’t make this s*** up.”

The dictionary defines Sarcasm as: “The use of irony to mock or convey contempt.”

The street definition is “Gotcha!”

This piece is a bit of both, however, before I present it, I wish to explain two relevant points:

During my thirty-year career in the marine and energy insurance business, I represented several so called “Big Oil” clients and major oil tanker fleet owners. To fulfill their insurance needs led me to develop a close understanding of how they think. The major oil and gas companies are the most competitive, competent and professionally run operations on the planet yet extremely demanding in achieving their perceived results.   

They are ahead of everybody else including Uncle Sam and like Uncle, they have all the time, all the money and all the lawyers they need. Witness Rex Tillerson’s tumultuous tenure as Secretary of State. He knew he was better than the President, but he failed to recognize he was no longer CEO of Exxon-Mobile and Trump was now the 800-pound gorilla in the room.

I lifted what follows from an article by Jesse Barron: “Hedging Against the Apocalypse,” part of a series of essays in the April 14, 2019 climate issue of The New York Times Magazine.

I accept on face value what Mr. Barron wrote and, to the best of my ability, I have not influenced or altered his message.

Barron begins with a confrontation between Tillerson, and a Capuchin Franciscan friar, Michael Crosby, during Exxon-Mobil’s 2015 Annual Meeting. Crosby deliberately set out to upset Tillerson’s apple cart by accusing him of deliberately ignoring climate change. During their exchange, the good friar gave the CEO a run for his money scolding Tillerson by admonishing him that, “You’re living in the past.”

Crosby challenged the CEO on renewables, but Tillerson came right back at him. From my own experience, I can easily picture the biggest bully in the room gripping the rostrum, steely eyes, laser focused, reply: “Quite frankly, Father Crosby, we choose not to lose money on purpose.”

Dear reader, Tillerson’s statement sums up in a nutshell what makes Big Oil tick.

Fast forward to 2018. Never mind that Tillerson retired and Darron Woods is Exxon-Mobil’s new CEO.

Declan Flanagan, CEO of Lincoln Clean Energy, a renewables company announces that his firm has partnered with Exxon…”to build a solar farm in the Permian Basin.”

If you read the book, Friday Night Lights, saw the movie or watched the TV series, you would understand that the Permian basin was in decline in the 80’s and 90’s. Its oil fields first exploited in 1921, were running dry. Drilling was at a minimum and Odessa, the heart of the basin, was dying.

There was a solution, hydraulic fracturing, a concept first reported in a 1948 issue of Oil & Gas Journal. (Ayn Rand promoted the concept in her masterful 1957 apocalyptic novel, Atlas Shrugged.) (Who is John Gault?)

But the price of crude oil remained too low and the cost of fracturing or, fracking remained too high for this technology to be cost-effective until the millennium when the price of oil and advanced technology made it profitable.  

Barron noted in his piece: “In recent years, the Permian became the most productive oil and gas field in the United States, as…fracking…made it possible to shatter the tightly packed shale. Exxon, Chevron and their peers can now access natural gas and oil that was previously unreachable…If Permian were a country, it would rank among the largest oil states in the world.”

“All well and good but what’s the point? Simple, fracking requires an inordinate amount of electricity to be effective. Though Exxon’s deal with Lincoln is one of the most visible examples of a fossil-fuel company using renewable energy, all the Permian extraction outfits consume it…to make fracking more profitable.”

Exxon, Chevron and their partners have blanketed the surface of the Permian with solar panels installed by Lincoln for the sole purpose to pay the electric bills needed to extract the oil and gas.

Save the planet? Bah humbug: Maximize profits.

Climate change is real. What Big Oil is doing in the Permian is at best, a head-shaker and, at worse, complete pervasion of why Lincoln exists and its stated goals.

Never-the-less, because of fracking, the USA has once again become a net exporter of oil and gas and Lincoln is making a handsome profit.

Note to my readers: my computer is out of action forcing me to present an abbreviated version of this piece using my IPad.

The point of my original piece was to demonstrate that Lyndon Blaines Johnson knew from the beginning that our war in Vietnam was a “Bright and shinning lie.”

In his book, Presidents of War, Michael Beschloss reproduces LBJ’s conversation with Senator Richard Russell recorded by LBJ on May 27, 1965:

(LBJ:) “It’s the damn worst mess I ever saw…and I don’t know how we’re ever going to get out of it without fighting a major war with the Chinese and all of them, down there in those rice paddies and jungles…It appears that our position is deteriorating. And it looks like the more that we try to do for them, the less that they are willing to do for themselves…It is just one of those places that you can’t win…it frightens me…It’d be Korea on a much bigger scale and a worse scale…The French report they lost 250,000 men and spent a couple of billion of their money and two billion of ours, down there, and just got the hell whipped out of them…we’re just in quicksand—up to our very necks.”

On March 31, 1968, almost three years later, LBJ cashed in his chips finally admitting that the military quagmire he called: That “Goddam” War had destroyed his presidency.

He concluded his otherwise banal speech to his tired and spent constituents with these two pronouncements:

“With America’s sons in the field far away, with America’s future under challenge right here at home, with our hopes and the world’s hopes for peace in the balance every day, I do not believe that I should devote an hour or a day of my time to nay personal partisan causes or to any duties other than the awesome duties of this office—the Presidency of your country.”

“Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president.”

So marked the beginning of the end for America to lose the war we couldn’t win. Richard Nixon gave us five more years of killing fields in Southeast Asia before the house of cards collapsed in 1973,

LBJ missed the dramatic last scene, succumbing to a heart attack on January 22 of that year. RIP.

I hope you enjoy this abbreviated and early post, and, God willing, I’ll be back in business next week.

“

K

Early in the morning of April 18, 1942, Captain Marc A. Mitscher ordered the USS Hornet, to turn into the wind and prepare to launch aircraft. Sixteen twin-engine Army Air Force B-25 bombers were lined up on the flight deck, engines roaring prepared to race into the sky and fly to Tokyo 650 miles distant. The first bomber had only 500 feet of deck available to achieve take-off speed. Splashing into the Pacific presented a real and frightening possibility.

The battle plan called for the B-25s to be launched no further than 500 miles from their target but Admiral William F. (Bull) Halsey in charge of the task force, was spooked by a Japanese picket ship that reported his fleet. Halsey’s priority was to protect his two aircraft carriers. He ordered an early launching so his fleet could retire before the enemy mounted a counter attack.

Sixteen airplanes, 80 men, five aboard each airplane. A pilot, co-pilot, navigator, bombardier and an engineer / gunner. Lieutenant Colonel James (Jimmy) Doolittle commanded the mission and flew that first bomber. His co-pilot was Lieutenant Richard E. Cole who lived long enough to be the last surviving Raider. Lieutenant Colonel Cole (retired) died on April 9, 2019. He was 103.

Doolittle and Cole shared the flying but during the flight, Cole perplexed his pilot. Cole recalled that the crew remained quiet as they approached Japan but, “…The tune, Wabash Cannonball, kept running through my mind. I (started) singing and stomping my foot with such gusto that the boss looked at me in a very questioning manner like he thought I was going batty.”

Listen to the jingle, the rumble and the roar

As she glides along the wonderland o’er the hills and by the shore

Hear the mighty rush of the engine hear those lonesome hobos call

Traveling south to Dixie on the Wabash Cannonball

Every plane reached Tokyo, successfully delivered its bomb loads and escaped with minimal damage. Sadly, the added 150 miles made it impossible for any plane to make it to a Chinese controlled landing strip. The crews had a Hobson choice to crash land or parachute into a dark and rainy night. One aircraft made it to the Soviet Union where the crew was interned. Three aviators were killed and eight fell captive to the Japanese. Four of these Raiders survived to return home once the war ended.

Cole’s parachute snagged a pine tree. Twelve feet off the ground, he waited until morning. “Being a young kid…it was easy for me to climb down.” Chinese soldiers on patrol found Cole and reunited him with Doolittle at their nearby camp. 

The story of the raid is legendary. Conceived in January of 1942 by Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Ernest J. King as a morale booster to gladden the hearts of Americans during the darkest days of World War II. Franklin D. Roosevelt approved it with gusto.

As soon as news of the raid was released it became the stuff of legends that was magnified by the book and movie, “Thirty Seconds over Tokyo”, starring Spencer Tracy as Doolittle. FDR helped enhance the mystery. When asked to reveal the secret location where the bombers originated, he replied: “Shangri-La.”

Jimmy Doolittle received the Congressional Medal of Honor in recognition of his heroic exploit. An aviator’s aviator and a great leader, Doolittle held several important commands during the war including the Eighth Air Force. He retired in 1959 as a four-star general. He died at age 96 in 1993.

Dick Cole retired from the USAF in 1967 and moved to Comfort, Texas.

The Raiders sported an active alumnus first meeting in 1946 to celebrate their leader’s 50^th birthday in Miami. Cole told the National World War II Museum: “It gave us a chance to renew the camaraderie of the group and it gave us a chance to honor the people that gave their lives on the mission and those who had left the group since.”

The reunions became an annual affair. In 1959, the city of Tucson presented the Raiders with 80 silver goblets, each etched twice with each raider’s name, one right side up, the other upside down. At each reunion, the Raiders raised a toast with a sip of 1896 cognac, the vintage-Doolittle’s birth year. They retired the goblets of those who passed since the previous reunion by turning them upside down.

Cole built a velvet-lined display case to move the collection to the site of each reunion. By 2013, only four survivors remained, Dick Cole, Edward J. Saylor, David J. Thatcher and Robert Hite who could not make the ceremony.

Colnel Cole made the final public toast: “To the gentlemen we lost on that mission and to those who passed away since, thank you very much and may you rest in peace.

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined tumbling mirth

I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung

My eager craft through footless halls of air…

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue,

Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

(From High Flight by John Gillespie Magee Jr.) 

RIP Dick Cole, Jimmy Doolittle and the other 78 Raiders: collectively our National Heritage.

Netflix premiered the film, Highwaymen, in mid-March at selected theatres for one week to make it eligible for the 2020 awards season, a curious requirement they had to fulfill before releasing it on their proprietary network on Friday, March 29^th.

A true story, so far as any Hollywood production can be considered true, it tracks two de-commissioned Texas lawmen, Frank Hamer and Maney Gault who are pressed into service to track down and kill Bonnie and Clyde.

Played by Kevin Costner (Hamer) and Woody Harrelson (Gault), they prepare to ambush Bonnie and Clyde with the assistance of three local Louisiana lawmen. Utilizing basic police work, they deduce the couple’s next move. The young murderers meet their end in a hail of automatic, rifle and shotgun fire. The Highwaymen is a decent film, but way too long for my taste.

On Thursday, March 28^th, I happened to be listening in to our local morning WABC radio show featuring Bernard McGurk and Sid Rosenberg when Costner joined them by phone for a pre-planned promotional interview for the movie.

We will never know, but I believe Sid drew the short straw as the boys knew Costner was only doing this to fulfill publicity requirements. As expected, Costner sounded noticeably disinterested and bored as the interview began. Rosenberg took a different approach that caught Costner totally off guard.

“Kevin, you have starred in a number of baseball movies like Bull Durham and Field of Dreams, but I have to tell you my favorite was For the Love of the Game.”

“Mine too.” Costner responded, his enthusiasm clearly building. Rosenberg, who has an ego the size of an elephant, wisely understood not to interrupt and let Costner continue:

“We spent two weeks filming in Yankee Stadium, but it almost never happened. Two or three days before we were supposed to start, I was told that George Steinbrenner, the Yankees principal owner, had nixed the deal and banned us from the ball park.”

“It was up to me to call Steinbrenner and settle the problem. I called him, we exchanged pleasantries before I asked him what was wrong?”

“He replied: ‘I don’t like your movie because the Yankees lose.’

“George,” I responded, “It’s true that our hero pitches a perfect game against the Yankees, but he is a diminished pitcher who is at the end of his career. Sure, he ends with a perfect game, but the Yankees had already clinched the pennant and would go on to win the World Series.”

“Hearing that Steinbrenner decided he loved the concept and gave us a green light to make the movie.”

Costner paused and continued: “You know, I have never told that story to any one else before, so I guess I have given you a big scoop.”

“Oh yeah, one more thing, as luck would have it, the Yankees won the World Series that same season and Steinbrenner sent me my own World Series Championship ring. I have never worn it, that would be inappropriate, but it’s my prized possession that I keep it with my valuables.”

Having never seen For the Love of the Game, I watched it on demand the following weekend. I found it to be only fair but an enjoyable baseball movie. However, I discovered that Costner wasn’t completely honest with Steinbrenner. When the hero, Billy Chapel, pitches his gem against the Yankees, they were tied with the Boston Red Sox and the pennant was yet to be decided.

It would appear that actors like politicians can’t be trusted.      

Late in December of 1960 my father summoned me to Miami between Christmas and New Year’s Day to meet with Congressman Dante B. Fascell’s service academy selection committee. John Sr. desperately wanted me to attend the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy located on Kings Point, Long Island. The old man believed the competition for an appointment from Florida would be easier than from New York so he concocted a plan that I would apply using his Homestead, FL address.

(Long story short: John Sr. divorced my mother shortly after coming home from WW II. He re-married and remained on active service. In 1957 he was stationed at Homestead AFB while I lived with Mom in Ridgewood, Queens.)

My reaction on arrival; culture shock. They had Christmas lights in Florida. I thought: “How dare they! Christmas belonged to those of us who suffered through cold snowy winters. These interlopers had the sun, swimming pools and short-sleeve shirts. Who gave them the right to celebrate Christmas!”

I did meet with the selection committee; it went nowhere.

But the trip wasn’t a waste of time for me. On one of my few free days, the old man drove over to the home of Jack Roberts in Coral Gables. Jack was an Eastern Airlines pilot and was the first person I ever met who had a swimming pool in his backyard. On this day though, swimming would have to wait.

Jack announced to his two boys and me, “Pile into the car, we’re going to go watch a football practice.”

We filled the back seat, my father sat shotgun and off we went to a nearby field in Coral Gables. Jack explained who we were watching: “Boys, that’s the Midshipmen preparing for their game on New Year’s Day against the Missouri Tigers in the Orange Bowl.”

We stood there watching their drills, an experience slightly more exciting than watching grass grow or paint dry. Jack and John Sr. drifted off to speak to one of Navy’s coaches. They re-joined us as practice ended. I stood there wondering why we were wasting swimming time when the coach walked over with a midshipman dressed in a sweat-stained cut-off tee shirt and blue shorts. First thing I noticed, I was taller than him but, quickly my eyes were drawn to his enormous legs. His name was Joe Bellino.

The Washington Post noted: “Deceptively fast, the 5-foot-9, 185-pound Bellino said he was never tackled from behind. His legs were so heavily muscled that he had to cut slits in the back of his football pants to make them fit.”

“All I know is that I was quick,” (Bellino) told the Baltimore Sun in 2010. “I wasn’t big in the shoulders or waist, but my legs were stocky, and I was built low to the ground. I could run straight, or sideways, without losing any speed.”

Bellino first greeted Roberts and my father with the respect due an Eastern Airlines captain and a USAF Major. Moving on to us kids, Roberts introduced us as we shook his hand. He wore a smile easily and joked around with us before leaving for the locker room.

The thought of asking for an autograph seemed out of the question, but all three of us were genuinely impressed by this football hero who spoke to us.

Back at Mr. Roberts’ house, we charged into the pool for a good time, but observed Mr. Roberts posted warning sign: “IF YOU PISS IN MY POOL – I’LL SWIM IN YOUR TOILET BOWL”

Despite this disappointment, Joe Bellino was awarded the 1960 Heisman Trophy as the best college football player in the nation. Labeled, “Jolting Joe” and the “Winchester Rifle,” in honor of his Massachusetts home town, he broke every running record at Navy. Annapolis retired his number. 

Arthur Daly, then the dean of The New York Times sportswriters scribed:” Of recent years the Navy has developed at least two tremendous weapons. One is the Polaris missile and the other is Joe Bellino’”

Red Smith, then writing for the New York Herald Tribune noted: “(He) wriggles like a brook trout through congested traffic.”

For the Service Academies, their clashes against each other are paramount. And the greatest rivalry is Army versus Navy. In the 1959 contest Bellino scored three touchdowns including two scoring runs of 15 and 46 yards and, playing both ways, he intercepted an Army pass to set up another Navy TD. Final score: Navy 43, Army 12.

The following year’s game was much closer, but the Midshipmen prevailed 17-12. “Bellino ran for 85 yards, caught two passes, scored a touchdown, returned kickoffs and at game’s end, intercepted an Army pass on Navy’s goal line to preserve the win.”

After I returned to Ridgewood, I watched my newly adopted Midshipman lose the Orange Bowl to the Tigers: 21-14 on New Year’s Day…and so it goes.

Bellino fulfilled his service obligation played two years in the pros for the Patriots before finding an ordinary American life back home in small town Massachusetts.

Reading his obituary in Newsday on April3, 2019 reminded me my father’s scheme, my first winter break and meeting my first football hero. Joe Bellino, RIP.

On the Outside Looking In will not publish on April 17 and will resume om April 24.

Robert McCallum is an engraver for the Granite Industries of Vermont located in Barre. “McCallum has been making headstones for over 18 years. He has nine years to go before he can retire with a union pension.”

He leaves his home in darkness every working day so he can clock-in by 6 AM, for his eight-hour shift that allows him time to pick up his daughter when school ends. Each shift, he first applies stencils on approximately 30 tombstones that he uses to engrave the particulars of the fallen

Asked if a tomb stone stands out in his memory, he mentioned Ross McGinnis who was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor in 2008. “McGinnis was only 19 when he threw himself on top of a grenade that was thrown into his Humvee in Bagdad. His body absorbed most of the blast, saving the other men inside. I feel sad that McGinnis and these others couldn’t live their lives. They died for their brothers. In my eyes, they did their duty to the fullest.”

Last fall, The New York Times profiled families who lost loved ones on the killing fields of Iraq and Afghanistan during our wars without end.  The essay by John Ismay about McCallum, “Carving Thousands of Headstones,” was the exception. McCallum survived his stint in Iraq with the Charlie Company, 368^th Engineering Battalion of the US Army Reserve. He was a construction supervisor, paving roads during our invasion.

The 368^th is housed in armories located across southern Vermont and New Hampshire and Charlie Company is based in Londonderry NH. Units like the 368^th have been regularly called-up to active duty several times to serve in these perpetual conflicts that ensued following the slaughter of the innocents on September 11, 2001. It is a fact that the Regular Army cannot function without these reservists. McCallum retired from the reserves in 2011 with the rank of staff sergeant.

———-

After Fort Sumpter fell on April 13, 1861, the Union War Department was remarkably prescient that the ensuing conflict would produce massive casualties. The army issued General Order 75 on September 11, 1861 making commanders responsible for burials and marking graves. Quartermaster General, Montgomery Meigs chose to appropriate Robert E. Lee’s estate to establish Arlington National Cemetery. Wooden headstones that averaged a cost of $1.23 were used to mark the dead, but the life-expectancy of these boards was no more than five years. With the total recovered dead estimated to be around 300,000 the replacement cost would exceed $1 million over a 20-year period.

In 1873, the Secretary of War, William W. Belknap, set the first standards for stone markers. Made from granite or other durable stone, each marker would measure four inches thick, 10 inches wide and 12 inches high. Above the ground the stone was polished and the top slightly curved. Each stone displayed its number, the soldier’s rank, name and the state he served. In 1903, the height was increased to 30 inches, the width to 12 inches and the thickness to four inches. Over the years everything about these tombstones evolved as we evolved.

———-

Like Robert McCallum, Eddie Puckett was a modern-day stone cutter employed by the Georgia Marble Company. “Eddie figures he’s made 300,000 to 400,000 headstones for soldiers and their spouses during nearly 40 years of work.” So wrote Anna Varela for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

“For most of my career I made replacement tombstones for the ones that wear out after 50-years or updated existing ones to include spouses. The past few years have been different, though. With the war in Iraq, there are more names and death dates for soldiers recently fallen. These are most bothersome. I’ve done headstones for all the other wars that you can name – from the Revolutionary War on up. But you kind of feel for the Iraq and Afghanistan soldiers because it’s an ongoing thing.”

Arlington is a solemn oasis across the Potomac from DC.  I witnessed the formality, respect and precision of the service there during my father’s internment. From start to finish every aspect of his service personified our nation’s honor and respect.

Arlington, of course, is where John F. Kennedy was laid to rest. Nobody described it better than Jimmy Breslin in “Digging JFK Grave Was His Honor:”

Clifton Pollard was pretty sure he was going to be working on Sunday, so when he woke up at 9 a.m., in his three-room apartment on Corcoran Street, he put on his khaki overalls before going into the kitchen for breakfast. His wife, Hattie, made bacon and eggs for him. Pollard was in the middle of eating them when he received the phone call he had been expecting. It was from Mazo Kawalchik, who is the foreman of the gravediggers at Arlington National Cemetery, which is where Pollard works for a living. “Polly, could you please be here by eleven O’clock this morning?” Kwalchik asked. “I guess you know what it’s for.” Pollard did. He hung up the phone, finished breakfast, and left his apartment so he could spend Sunday digging a grave for John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

When Pollard got to the row of yellow wooden garages where the cemetery equipment is stored, Kawalchik and John Metzler, the cemetery superintendent, were waiting for him, “Sorry to put you out like this on a Sunday,” Metzler said. “Oh, don’t say that,” Pollard said. “Why it’s an honor for me to be here.”

Pollard was 42 a veteran of World War II. Breslin concluded:

One of the last to serve JFK, who was the thirty-fifth President of this country, was a working man who earns $3.01 an hour and said it was an honor to dig the grave.

On a cold Thursday afternoon in early March, Bob Christman and I drove out to the AMC movie complex in Stony Brook, about one-hour from our homes to see the documentary at the only IMAX presentation on Long Island. Our journey didn’t disappoint.

Apollo 11 is an extraordinary documentary that gives the audience a cinematic opportunity to experience mankind’s greatest achievement in the Twentieth Century, the first manned mission to the moon, as it unfolded.

It stars Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin as heroic, competent and well-trained test pilots and engineers; men who had the “Right Stuff.” Apollo 11 delves into the difficulties anticipated and the total effort needed to achieve success. Not just by the astronauts but collectively by NASA’s leaders and engineers at Cape Kennedy and the Houston Space Center. The documentary gives credit to the four different teams each led by a giant at NASA, Clifford Charlesworth, Gerald Griffin, Gene Kranz and Glenn Lunney. Their teams shared responsibility for the critical phases of the mission; launch and EVA maneuvers, the Luna landing, ascent, rendezvous, Luna burn and splash down.

Apollo 11 opens with the sights and sounds of the huge crawler hauling the Saturn V rocket topped by the Apollo capsule on its journey from the assembly building to the launch pad. Our first look at the engineers in launch control follows. We become familiar with these people at the Cape and Houston as the mission unfolds. It is disconcerting to realize that NASA was almost exclusively white and male, reflective of our society circa the late sixties. Nevertheless, we bond with them and share their anticipations, tensions and triumphs.

A second shock was remembering that this was filmed in 1969 when the counter-culture, the Vietnam War, political violence and dissention, racial strife and the assassinations of Bobby Kennedy and MLK Jr were tearing our Republic apart. NASA existed inside a bubble frozen in 1959. The grooming, dress and demeanor of the astronauts, management, the engineers and technicians reflect a by-gone era. Their white business shirts, dark, narrow ties and short haircuts scream IBM. The only exception; the eloquence of Kranz. (The Tom Hanks movie, Apollo13, provides a close-up of Gene Kranz’s style as played by Ed Harris.)    

Apollo 11 reminds us of how risky this mission was, and the many things that could go wrong at any stage. To succeed, everything had to work when it needed to work, sequentially before the next thing that had to work could work. Thousands and thousands of little things had to perform over the course of eight days or else the mission would fail.

It has been said that our scientists and engineers conceived and constructed the atom bomb using slide rules but needed computers to make the moon landing possible. Fair enough, yet those 1960s main-frame computers had a just small fraction of the power in an iPhone 4.

The producers had an enormous amount of 16 mm film at their disposal shot by NASA and the astronauts during their flight. They edited this stock to heighten the tension. The producers didn’t use narration, relying on actual NASA announcements, and a few broadcasts from Walter Cronkite and others to enliven the documentary.  Simple graphics followed by actual 16 MM movie footage carries the day.

Of course, the documentary includes the familiar excerpt from John F. Kennedy’s brilliant “Go to the Moon” speech given on September 12, 1962 at Rice University:

“We choose to go to the moon! We choose to go to the Moon… We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win…”

Apollo 11 is “a must-see documentary” From countdown to lift-off and launch, to stage separation, to hook-up with the LEM, to the voyage to the moon, orbit, separation, descent and landing.

Tension and triumph run high from the moment that Apollo 11 separates into Columbia, the capsule where Collins would remain solo and the LEM named Eagle that carried Armstrong and Aldrin to the Luna surface where it became Tranquility Base.

Tension continues with each decisive stage; firing the upper part of the Eagle to propel it back to mate with Columbia reforming Apollo11, jettisoning the LEM, the Moon burn to bring these heroes back to earth, ditching the command module leaving just the capsule for the insertion and landing.

I lived and died with all those engineers as they worried through each critical function that could result in failure or a “Good to go” and on to the next decision.

Apollo 11 ends with the successful recovery, our three heroes in isolation, their release and nation-wide celebrations, parades and awards.

Brilliant!

As we walked out of the theater, Bob turned to me and asked, “Were we really that young when this happened and was our country that daring and able?”

December 2015, Revised March 2019

There is nothing that excites or thrills politicians more than the opportunity to puff up and express righteous, unabashed, and nationalistic indignation against evil forces encroaching upon the American way. This opportunity to express indignity is especially satisfying when they can unleash it after discovering the culprit is a big bully, like Amazon, Google or Boeing especially if caught with their hand in Uncle’s till. Never mind these politicians own soiled reputations for not always doing the right thing; they either forget or down-play their own or fellow colleagues’ foibles in the pursuit of publicity.

Such political fodder provides representatives and senators with the opportunity to demonstrate displeasure and outrage without consequence allowing them to attack like a pack of mad dogs. Better yet, going off against powerful, rich and arrogant organizations, grabs the ever-hungry activist press and a little leak here and there sets off a feeding frenzy; forget the dogs, the sharks have taken control and there is blood in the water.

This incident broke when a New Jersey newspaper reported in the spring of 2015 that the New York Jets received $377,000 from the New Jersey National Guard for ceremonial events saluting the military during several their home games. This led to a Senate investigation chaired by Jeff Flake and the late John McCain, both the representing Arizona. The investigation revealed the Department of Defense (D.O.D.) had spent $6.8 million in 2014, “…on questionable marketing contracts with sports teams, including events to honor American soldiers at games…”

The sum of $5,400,000 was paid to the biggest sports bully in the known Universe, the National Football League. Fourteen of the NFL’s 32 teams participated including the Jets, the Atlanta Falcons ($877,000), Buffalo Bills ($650,000) and the New England Patriots ($700,000).

Of course, the D.O.D. spent the bulk of their money with NFL teams. That’s where every smart advertiser goes to get the most bang for their buck. Even so, the NFL was not the only venue. Various entities within the D.O.D., mostly state National Guard organizations, paid money to teams for promotional consideration from Major League Baseball, Major League Soccer, the National Hockey League and the National Basketball Association. Teams that profited included the Atlanta Braves ($450,000), Boston Red Sox ($100,000), Arizona Diamondbacks ($40,000) and Minnesota Wild ($500,000).

The Boston Globe reported: “The Boston Celtics received $195,000 in part to spotlight soldiers at home games. The Boston Bruins received $280,000 for national anthem performances, color guards and reenlistment ceremonies.”

Senator McCain opined: “It is hard to understand how a team accepting taxpayer funds to sponsor a military appreciation game, or to recognize wounded warriors or returning troops can be construed as anything other than paid patriotism.”

Senator Flake added: “These tributes are as popular as the kiss cam. But when people assume this is a goodwill gesture and then find out the heart-felt moment is part of a taxpayer-funded marketing campaign, it cheapens the whole thing.”

Bloomberg News reported that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell pledged to conduct an audit of all contracts between NFL teams and the military promising: “Any payments made for activities beyond recruitment or advertising will be refunded in full.”

God knows, Goodell has every incentive to be proactive and corral bad publicity as quickly as possible. Goodell has already been suffering through a series of annus horribilis as he bumbled through a multitude of NFL issues like domestic abuse, head injuries, and concussions, kneeling during our National Anthem and the machinations of the New England Patriots. If it isn’t Tom Brady having footballs deflated, it’s Bob Kraft personal deflation in the Orchards of Asia Day Spa in Jupiter, Florida.

Two footnotes:  

1: The amount involved ($6.8MM) doesn’t exactly impact on the D.O.D. budget of $619 billion as it represents .00001% of this amount.

2: Note, the New York Football Giants, New York Yankees and New York Mets remained clean.

I first became acquainted with Linda Ronstadt’s music in 1978 due to a minor hiccup involving a new car. I had just taken delivery of my first company car, a navy-blue Chevrolet Caprice Classic four-door sedan. The model included super-extras like a power radio antenna, wire-wheel hub caps and a tape deck.

That Chevy turned out to be one of the best cars I ever had but the factory did get one thing wrong. Instead of having a tape player, my Caprice arrived with an Eight-Track player. (I suspect many of you have never heard of Eight-Track, so I ask that you look it up as it is too difficult and archaic to describe.)

Since we didn’t have an Eight-Track player at home, I asked my children, Beth (9) and Michael (7) to accompany me to Tower Records in the nearby Miracle Mile shopping center in Manhasset to pick out two Eight-Track tapes. They selected Simple Dreams and Heart Like a Wheel, and so began my love affair with Linda Ronstadt’s artistic ability.

I have already written about, Dedicated to the One I Love, and how Linda’s “lullaby album” gave me wonderful opportunities to gift that CD to women I knew when they announced they were pregnant for the first time.

My Ronstadt collection grew over the years, albums, tapes and finally CDs and culminated when my son-in-law, Tom, was able to secure her four-disc Box Set.

One morning, my colleague, Lisa, came into my office to tell me about the fabulous Linda Ronstadt concert she and her husband, Steve, attended the previous night at Radio City Music Hall. “John, she was amazing, it was a wonderful show. Linda belted out a sensational repertoire of her hits and her band and backup singers were fabulous.

“But the best part of the show was her encore. She came out alone onto an empty stage, just a baby grand piano, a single spotlight and Linda. She sat down and unaccompanied, Linda presented a thrilling and moving rendition of Desperado.”

Unfortunately, I never had the opportunity to see her in concert. From time to time, a friend or acquaintance fresh off a Ronstadt concert would seek me out knowing how big a fan I was. He or she raved about their experience. I waited for them to reach their climax and tell me about her encore. Rightly or wrongly, I chose to cut them off at the pass with, “I know she sang Desperado alone, just a baby grand, a single spotlight and Linda.”

Each time this happened I recognized that the person relating this experience was clearly moved by it. Still, I never found the occasion to pull the trigger and join these select fans who experienced a Linda Ronstadt concert.

How sad, when MS Ronstadt announced that she could no longer sing because of Parkinson’s disease and the realization of having to accept, her ship had sailed, or so it seemed.

Last summer, I needed an MRI and when the technician led me into the room, he said, “You’re in luck as you will be inside our newest machine that has Pandora. Who would you like to listen to?”

When I answered, “Linda Ronstadt,” he replied, “Can you spell Ronstadt.”

I tell you youth is wasted on the young!

As if by Divine intervention, a minor miracle. Recently, John Boylan, Linda’s management consultant tracked down the long missing master tapes of her 1980 HBO concert in LA. MS Ronstadt had never released a CD recorded live before. This time she agreed to release Linda Ronstadt, Live in Hollywood.

She selected 12 songs from the master including a 6:12 minute version of You’re No Good and, of course, her encore performance of Desperado. When I told Beth about this, she found it Spotify: “It’s such a good song. Reminds me of being in the back of the Caprice and listening to it on Eight-Track.”  

For those of you who never saw Linda live in concert, I recommend that you find this rendition.

Picture if you will, one baby grand, one spotlight, one woman, no back-up singers, no strings, no horns and no orchestra; just Linda and the song she owns.