I sat on the couch, facing the television console, Julie on my left but not snuggled up to my side as she had proven herself to be not that kind of little person. Mrs. Beasley, however, was pulled close into her left side and Bozo made believe he was watching television seated on the end table, too close for comfort near my right side, but never violating the short distance between us. His remarkable ability to sit for hours on end, staring, or blinking ever so slowly, always amazed me and one day I’d look up why he acted that way, for the most part, instead of lying and sleeping his life away like most cats. Of course, I’d quickly come to understand that he was anything but a normal cat, any more than my wife was an ordinary wife or my daughter ordinary in any way.
The evening news came on, as I waited expectantly for more information on the fast-developing Watergate investigation that had turned into the Watergate coverup investigation. But the headline story was about anything but that. I watched the images crossing the screen of a burned-out passenger plane, its flame-blackened tail rising high in the air. United Flight 533 had crashed with no survivors flying into a small almost unknown airport called Midway, just on the outskirts of Chicago. Aboard the plane was a woman named Dorothy Hunt, wife of E. Howard Hunt.
My body relaxed and I began to breathe deeper, taking much longer to inhale and exhale. Julie, sensing something, reached her right hand, the one not occupied holding Mrs. Beasley close to her other side, and rested it on my left hand.
While my body went into a high-threat awareness mode my mind raced trying to put dates together. It was December 3rd. Dorothy’s husband, E. Howard Hunt, the supposed master planner behind the Watergate break-in, was alleged to be indicted or about to be indicted by a Federal Grand Jury. The bizarre plane crash was even more of that because of the backgrounds of some of the people connected. Bebe Rebozo, the man mafia-connected to Boss Trafficante in Miami had been a Pan American navigator and was proud of it. E. Howard had been a naval aviator. Coincidences were building up to a conclusion I was growing ever more uncomfortable with, and a bit afraid about.
I’d truly, since coming home, only really been afraid of either losing my job or not making enough money to support my family. I’d only thought about the danger of impending doom in a conjectural way, not as a possibility.
I liked the woman. She hadn’t been like June Cobb, a player, and therefore a person who might be expected to be in danger. She’d been like a regular woman of keen intellect and kindly open personality. Who would she have been a threat to if she’d remained alive? And who would kill 44 other people just to get her if that was the intent? I wondered if I was fast becoming, if I’d not already become, a part of a living moving beast of such coldness and analytical deliberation that I could neither withdraw from nor survive.
The feelings I was experiencing were complex, although their expression wasn’t at all. I felt bad at my core. Was it fear for me, now that potential terminal danger was lingering about, at least in an ever more convincing fashion? The three Marines were dead, it gave every appearance that their passing was anything but accidental. Now Dorothy Hunt, a person who was deeply involved in carrying money back and forth for the different subterranean characters working around the president, if not always on his behalf…or, at least to his knowledge. I also felt a sense of loss over the woman. She was a motherly type, the kind I hadn’t had in my upbringing. I wondered if her death was hitting me so hard out of selfishness or true care. Was I not afraid as well as feeling the loss of the mother I’d never really had? Or was it more than that?
I needed Paul to help me with that but I wasn’t due to see him for three more days. He’d seen me ‘off the cuff’ once but made it clear that that event had been one of exception and not one I should get used to in the future. I knew my wife, no matter how wonderful in so many ways, wasn’t going to take it kindly at all that I was feeling bad about Hunt’s death, or any other woman’s passing, for that matter.
Mary and I got Julie ready for bed, while Bozo exited through his screen to the outside world. He was nocturnal, and his night was our day, I knew, even though he’d changed much of his time inside the apartment and outside considerably since he’d been given to us. The old woman who’d found him, staggering up from one of San Clemente’s deep canyons, never returned to check on him or see how he was doing.
My wife and I went to bed without much comment, although my mind continued to trace and retrace my contact with Mrs. Hunt, June Cobb, and Richard. All three were more than they’d let on or claimed, although what they were, and if they were together in whatever it was, remained a mystery. I got out of bed and went downstairs, throwing on one of the blue cotton robes I’d taken from the hospital up in Oakland a few years earlier. The robes were the only items of personal cover that weren’t made of the cheapest, thinnest, and flimsiest of materials.
I sat at the Sears and Roebuck dining room table, with only the kitchen light casting the dimmest of rays from its distance to my right. The light seemed more gray than yellow, but it had to do. If I turned on all the downstairs lights I knew my wife would be down in a jiffy, wondering what was wrong. Me, wandering the apartment in the night she didn’t like and wasn’t comfortable with, but at least she accepted as somewhat normal to the reborn creature who’d come back from the Valley of No Return.
The security I had in place was inadequate. The apartment jutted out over Avenida Cabrillo in a very distinctive way. Our Volks was in the driveway still loaded with rebreathers and a pound of C-4 high explosives. I’d made the decision not to burn or toss the one-pound bar into the ocean. Along with the fuse cord, det-cord, percussion, as well as electric primers. Even the Tetryl supplementary charge, used to give added power to the main charge, weighed in at almost a third of a pound. Thinking about the ballistics of the pyrotechnics made me feel safer and more comfortable, despite how poorly the rest of my security situation was. I was going to keep the materials for my use in case of a critical need, or at least to tamp down my feelings of paranoia, but I had to think a lot deeper and better prepare for the best way to keep and store them all the while making sure they were readily available in some time of need. To get the security we needed, I finally decided, we needed to move to somewhere, close by, but with much better native security than the wonderfully huge, but so very open apartment, could ever provide.
Returning to bed, I lay awake for a long time, wondering just how many people were feeling as bad as I was about the death of Mrs. Hunt. I’d not gotten to Cobb’s yacht in time. I just knew it. I had, and would likely never have, any confirmable idea about Bebe’s involvement in the woman’s death, but I’d had an inkling, and I should have run with it much sooner than I had. It reminded me so much of Macho Man, the helicopter Marine with his Thompson submachine gun in the valley. I’d let a few minutes slip by, as he’d been allowed to walk straight to his death, unknowing, with my figuring out what was going down too late to save him.
The next morning, after a fitful night’s half-sleep, I waited over at the Galloways. It’d been days since I’d made it back there, a fact that I regretted every time I thought about going there but not being able to make the time. I’d left home early, although I had no real plan of the day except for wanting to hear another of the tapes and know more. There were so many holes in my knowledge. Each time I filled one of the holes it seemed that three more opened all around me, however. But I couldn’t stop. To have a secure place to set up the machine, spool the tape, and not be interrupted or discovered in any way I needed to be in the apartment alone. That wouldn’t happen if I told my wife what I was up to. She didn’t share the same blazing curiosity I did in what might be on the tapes, but hers was pretty intense anyway.
My plan to select a time alone required that Bob Elwell be on duty at Lifeguard Tower Zero in the morning. It turned out he was there when I called the headquarters, catching him just before he left the headquarters building. Bob’s job was to call me at Galloway’s when Mary and Julie were firmly settled in on the beach since Mary only ever used the part of San Clemente Beach not very far from the south base of the pier.
I received my coffee from Lorraine, as always, right when I sat down. I knew there’d be no bill for it but it wouldn’t matter as Lorraine had nefarious, arcane, and brilliant ways to collect money, at least from me. As if reading my mind, she came back to my Del Mar Avenue-facing table and placed two slips of paper under my saucer, while I pulled the cup’s lip up slightly away from my mouth to stare at her.
“The next two,” she said, before laughing and heading back toward the kitchen.
I looked at the slips laid down in front of me. I held the coffee out and then took a few more swigs. The slips denoted two businesses and their owners. Lorraine had written times for each to be visited. One business was the city’s only canvas sail company and the other was the Italian restaurant located just as the PCH twisted north and headed along the railroad tracks toward Capistrano Beach. Neither of the businesses seemed like the kind that I would ever have visited, at least not for being prospects for the purchase of life insurance policies. I looked behind me, as Lorraine approached once again, her pot ready to fill my near-empty cup. She was smiling broadly.
“Lorraine,” I began, as she refilled my cup. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to convince these men I don’t know to buy anything. What did you say to them to get the appointments? Most of my clients, even the ones I’ve gotten through you, have been in positions where they had to buy for reasons other than family protection or even saving money.”
Lorraine set the Bunn pot next to my cup and leaned in close to my right ear.
“I told them that you were the Commander of the beach patrol and that you’d make sure they got any tickets taken care of if they got them in the future.
They’re eager to buy right now.” She picked up the coffee pot and headed back to the kitchen without saying another word.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” I whispered, staring down at the slips of paper.
“For whose sake?” a male voice said, from behind me. “I didn’t know you were religious.”
It was Mike Manning’s voice, his tone of derision so cutting it could have been nobody else. I folded the little slips of paper and put them in my pocket, wondering whether I shouldn’t simply toss them at my earliest opportunity. I needed the production, that much was certain, but there was no way I could fix tickets given out by other officers, or even my own once they were written into my triple copy ticket book. Those books got turned in after every shift and there were no changes allowed once the tickets were started, not without fiery backlash I didn’t want to receive or even think about. I also didn’t want to alienate Lorraine, although I had to wonder how she could do such a thing without understanding the position she was putting me in. Just telling the business owners what she’d likely told them could be career-ending for me if the conversation in the community headed in the wrong direction.
Mike and I bantered over a variety of seemingly unimportant subjects while I waited. Finally, Lorraine, after performing the same coffee service for Mike that she had done for me, came back but this time putting a bill for Mike’s coffee in front of me while she whispered into my left ear.
“The coast is clear,” she said, and then headed back to the kitchen.
“What was that?” Mike asked, but I ignored the question, instead taking out a couple of dollar bills and putting them on the table. I put my two prospect slips of paper into my pocket. I would have to go visit those two businesses later in the day, if for no other reason than to please Lorraine. There was no way I could live up to what she had promised, however, so I didn’t want to deal with the situation at all. I said my goodbye to Mike and left the shop to head for home with a rueful smile crossing my lips. Life back home was so many times like life had been down in the valley. I couldn’t move forward, back, up, or down…so where was I supposed to go to survive?
Once home, I went immediately up to the closet in our bedroom. I pulled the small cardboard box of tapes down, gathered the bigger box with the machine in it under my other arm, and headed downstairs to spread everything out on the dining room table. I breathed in and out deeply before opening the box.
One tape, with its strange burned in cursive letters, caught my immediate attention as I surveyed the remaining compound-derived tapes. I knew I was avoiding that particular reel that had the words heat-burned into its plastic side. The cursive letters formed words that scared me more than anything I thought might be on the others remaining. The tape I was avoiding had to do, I knew in my heart of hearts, with a potential violence that could consume my life, my family’s life, and those of everyone who lived on our planet, that what might be on that particular tape was almost too fearful to even consider. If a potential pardon wasn’t granted by the incoming president, who would have to be the Speaker of the House in the event of a presidential resignation, if my memory was correct, then Nixon might do what in retaliation, or possibly as a motivator? Only one weapon came to my mind and whatever had gone down inside the containment chamber at San Onofre that had cost the 3 Marines their lives snaked around that potential like a coiling Burmese Python snake. There was so much I didn’t know but that meant little when it came to worrying about the potential of all of what had happened and why it might happen very soon. The word ‘unseeable’ returned to my mind. I was listening to material that very well might be termed ‘unhearable,’ in the same sort of way.
Instead of the dreaded tape, I chose the one that read: “Kiss Haven Hal”, labeled to either indicate that the conversation taped was between Kissinger and Haldeman, or that some strange humor was at work in whoever made the original tapes. I did not know who ‘Haven’ might be and I was curious about that.
The tape hissed and crackled for a bit before Henry Kissinger’s voice could be made out, his accent fully evident and identifiable, as well as his very cold and analytical style of speaking when he was doing so with the people who were junior to him, which I had come to understand meant just about everyone.
It took me only about one minute to figure out who “Haven” was. It wasn’t a person at all. Kissinger was speaking to someone, more than likely Haldeman, about tax havens overseas. He referred to them a second time as offshore accounts. I had no idea what he was talking about, but then Kissinger’s tone changed, and the volume of his talking went so low that I almost couldn’t make out his words.
“We must get everything to the Channel Islands. We can’t have accounts, the attorney firm we purchase over there must have the accounts. We will own the attorney firm so there will be no attribution. The taxes are immaterial. We cannot ever have anyone know, or even be able to ask, where the monetary amounts have come from.”
I stopped the tape machine.
I was out of my element, but I instantly understood, as well, that I had no real place to gain more knowledge about such things as owning attorney firms aboard, offshore or tax haven accounts, or any of that. I pulled the reel from the machine and examined it closely. There was no date whatsoever or anything else burned into the plastic. There were no tags, like on the first tape. I sat back to think. I lived across the street from the San Clemente Library. That would have to be my research center of operations. Somehow, I was beginning to feel, that the entire confluence of events that I’d cast myself into might just be coming down to money.
Dorothy Hunt was dead. Bebe Rebozo was somehow involved, which means the president was likely involved, or at least in the know. Kissinger was moving money. Hunt had been a mover of money, as had been Cobb. That much I knew. President Nixon, as astounding as it was to consider, was going down. Money was going to play a huge role in all the lives of those around him, as well as for him. Where was that to come from if he was out of office and they, those powerful men all around him, lost their jobs, and contacts or even served some time behind bars? Cash, wherever it was being drawn from, was being gathered to be put someplace it could be accessed but no one could find out about it, nor its amount, its origins nor its distribution.
I placed the tape into its box without further listening, picked everything up, and replaced it in my closet ‘hiding place.’
Mary was at the beach with Julie, Bozo was nowhere to be seen. I called Bob and was put through to tower zero by Sheridan Byerly himself, the assistant chief. Sheridan asked no questions, not even my identity, which told me that he recognized my voice. I fully expected that he would be listening to whatever Bob and I spoke about. When I got through, Bob confirmed that the ‘subjects’ were still out in the sun, down at the beach before him. I thanked him and hung up.
I went down to the Volks and headed for Dana Point. If Paul was there I’d find a way to talk to him. I was moving, and that bothered me. I was comfortable in the apartment we were in and had no place to go. I knew all that would come but my sense of worry, about that, about what had happened to Hunt, the likelihood of world destruction and even offshore accounts, was so deep, and I had nowhere to take it. Paul wasn’t that place. Mary had agreed to meet with him but, so far, I hadn’t arranged the get-together. I didn’t know if I was worried about that on top of everything else. I was a bit of a mess, and I had to get myself together.
I pulled into the lot and headed the Volks over to my semi-clandestine parking slot.
“Next to the garbage dumpster, how very appropriate,” I said to myself, as I got out of the car. I was laughing out loud at my conclusion, and I wasn’t comfortable with that either. I went inside, wishing that Paul had left his sign out front so I’d know whether he was there or not.
I walked straight down the hall and turned into his office. The door was open, and he was sitting behind his desk like he’d been waiting, although I knew that was impossible. I almost laughed aloud at that mental conclusion, as well, since it seemed that in the last few months, particularly the last few weeks, days, and even hours, the word impossible was being stretched to an extent I would never have believed up until now. I plopped myself down in one of the chairs in front of him.
“Why are you here?” he asked, rocking back his executive chair.
“No particular reason,” I answered, truthfully.
I was there for all kinds of reasons but couldn’t think of any one reason to discuss with him. It simply felt better to sit in front of him, as if he was some sort of bastion of security against a frightening array of overpowering forces swirling around just outside.
“Dorothy Hunt was killed in a plane crash,” I finally blurted out when Paul didn’t reply.
“You don’t have an appointment,” Paul replied, his tone one of irritation.
I looked at him across the desk, my body relaxing and my breathing occurring at an ever-slowing rate. We must have sat looking at one another for a full minute, but it seemed like a lot longer.
“I think the President of the United States if he resigns but does not get a pardon from the incoming President, who would be Gerald Ford, might launch a nuclear strike,” I said the words calmly and slowly. Neither Paul nor I blinked while I talked.
Paul broke our mutual locked gaze, then rotated his body around to allow him to look out the window. He scratched his head slowly with his left hand, before rotating himself back to face me. He didn’t look me in the eyes, however, instead staring down at the top of his desk.
“You have grief issues about the loss of someone close to you, which is to be expected after all you’ve gone through.”
I stared at the man, wondering what I’d expected. It was like he hadn’t heard the potentially devastating information I’d given him about the end of the world. I didn’t say anything, as he hadn’t asked a question. I knew I was in the wrong place. I got up and went to the door.
“You’re right, I don’t have an appointment,” was all I said, before I exited his office, headed down the hall and toward my car.
I had to get home, whether Mary and Julie were back from the beach or not. I could no longer avoid what I had to do. I had to listen to the ‘End of the World’ tape, no matter what the tape held. I simply could not go on functioning normally, if at all, without knowing.
With the Holidays and everything going on and now over, I found that I have some catching up to do. Four new chapters. I distinctly remembered the United 533 crash, but other than reading the name “Dorthy Hunt” earlier I doubt I had ever heard of her before. Now I’m getting caught up in web that was spinning in your mind back then, and now spinning in the reader’s mind. And Bebe? He was just history to me until you now tell us about your conclusion, that he may have been involved in that, or for that matter any plane crash. The fall of Nixon seems to be dropping debris all around you.
Now, on to the next chapter. Thanks LT.
Thanks for the rather accurate portrayal of what was happening all around me at the time.
I am writing more of it this very day, of course. Hope you ride along for the continuing adventure.
Happy New Year, as we all begin again.
Semper fi,
Jim
Jim,
As good of a story as you weave (and the story you have woven since you got off the plane has been great), I have found I most look forward to the conversations between you and your readers. I have been entertained, educated and forced to research topics I have only been marginally familiar with but become deeply interested in because of the life experiences expressed in your comment section.
If you stopped writing today I would disappointed, but I would be just as disappointed to lose contact with your readers.
In case I haven’t been clear enough, I really enjoy your site.
Robert, ypur compliment goes into several areas and that is wonderful, at least for me to be reading this morning as I work away on
the next chapter. I spend some time responding to all comments in person, not because I necessarily love it (which I do) but because
the nature of how this site has (totally unexpectantly) taken on a life of its own has been so amazing and surprising. It was never planned and I strted out
responding to all comments because there was nobody else to do it. The readers, such as yourself, direct, guide and totally influence the flavor and
direction of the odyssey we are on, and add so much more to the written story…going all the way back to the beginning of 30 days.
Thanks for your accurate portrayal and such willing participation in the adventure.
Semper fi,
Jim
Merry Christmas to you as well Jim.
It is not my opinion that I am being led. Those with the power are not leaders at all, only people put in power by those that hold the purse strings. I just trudge along a path dictated by the requirements of taking care of Miss Mary and the felines: Snoball, Stormi, Kooki, Onyx, and Clicker. I have no time nor inclination to be deflected from my path by the actions of those people. At my level of existense it all goes above my head which I keep focused on my quest.
I’ve lived a full and entertaining life, with memories to sustain me.
Another great chapter sir. Thank you
TimP
Very interesting take on life itself Tim. Thanks, as well for your compliment. We are so overloaded with information, much of which ins’t information
at all. Thanks for the thought and the expression of it…
Semper fi,
Jim
ok
Midway is not on the outskirts of Chicago
it is in the city on the southside located on Cicero avenue
A chapter of mystery and confusion
why Midway? why that flight?
and wasn’t she former CIA?
why was Paul so arrogant and what money was Hank trying to hide? i think i know the connectors
Richard, Midway was once on the outskirts of downtown Chicago, but you might have noticed a certain
amount of development in and around Chicago over the last fifty years, or so.
Thanks for the comment and your analysis.
Semper fi, and Merry Christmas
Jim
Jim,
Thanks for yet another chapter of TCL.
I remember reading about that plane crash right after it happened and was struck by the oddity that Mr. Hunt happened to be on board.
Decades later, I have read more about that crash which raised eyebrows, such as the fact that the very first “officials” at the crash site were some FBI agents. And eventually there were a LOT of FBI agents at the crash site. Official reports say there were 50 FBI agents on scene within 45 minutes. Very unusual for all the FBI to descent so soon on a commercial airline crash.
Then when you look at some other key people who were also on the flight, the cyanide level from autopsy of the pilot being so high (and much higher than others), the fact that the two flight recorders from the plane were recovered but were ‘missing’ for two days, etc. you become very skeptical of what the official report states. I know that, if the plan was sabotaged and kill Mrs. Hunt, it was not because of the $10,000 in cash she was carrying. That is peanuts. Now the $2.5MM in securities made out to cash and other possible documents that she may have been carrying and what she planned to do with them when she landed is another story.
I still want to know what was ‘unseeable’ at the nuclear power plant (and lots of other things you thrust upon us in TCL) but realize I may at some point go to my grave without knowing the full story.
May you have a wonderful and peaceful Christmas holiday season. I will be doing my flying to MSP the day after Christmas to visit loved ones in N. Wisc. until Jan 2. We are not going thru Midway in Chicago–but I am not at risk from nefarious folks.
You are a special person.
Blessing to you, James.
THE WALTER DUKE! Comes at us all with another deep and searching comment, with a bit of angst and disappointment thrown in.
Most of the mysteries I’ve written about you will receive satisfaction about. Just keep on trucking along. i am sorry that
my odyssey is such a long one but the telling has more of a life all of its own than I expected. I was once asked by a big Hollywood
producer: “what comes first to you as a screenwriter, the story demanding to be told or you trying to create it?” I didn’t know the
answer, but do today. The story demanding to be told. I am as much drawn through this odyssey or adventure as some on here
are experiencing it with me. Hope you have a wonderful holiday and I will be writing away. Half done with the next chapter as I write this.
There is no stopping now.
Semper fi,
Your friend,
Jim
Another excellent head scratching chapter. I still don’t trust that shrink. Merry Christmas my friend.
Charles, you have a good instinct, although Paul was and remains a tough character to truly characterize. His
conduct is easier but that’s for reading in a future chapter. Thanks for the analysis and the compliment.
Semper fi and Merry Christmas,
Jim
If this was fiction it would be riveting but to know it was your actual experience blows my mind! Jim I’m so grateful for our friendship and am thoroughly enjoying this read. Batman
Batman. While all this was going on, which you mostly knew nothing about (except for what you likely got from Carl when he was
selling Woods a policy at the Western White House…
and he’d never talk to me about anything there), you were teaching me about human beings and instilling more about anthropology and sociology than I got out of my Ph.D. program later on.
Your forcing me to deal with people’s real lives and problems was invaluable to my very survival and I will never be able to thank you enough.
You were on the edges of the story I’m telling but, like the rope between scaling climbers up a high, steep
cliff, you were always there, even when the rope was, hopefully, not to be used.
Your friend,
Jim
How many times did you put the two slips of paper in your pocket? I counted two times.
Fixed. Thanks Don, for the help along the way. Sometimes my late night editing of the chapter
is not all that it could be, just ask DanC!
Semper fi, and Merry Christmas,
Jim
I must admit that I haven’t provided as much feedback, editorial or other wise, since 30 days. I’ve been more infatuated with this story line, and can’t wait to dive into the next “fix”. You’re a master and I appreciate every single chapter that you create. As a history major in college on my way to getting my butter bars, I didn’t appreciate the Watergate legacy more so than I do now. Semper Fi and Merry Christmas.
Thanks very much Joel, not just for your compliment but for you laying out
the way in which you’ve processed history along the way. Sometimes we just don’t have either the time
or the vision to even know we might be living history as well as reflecting on the portrayal of it.
Semper fi, and Merry Christmas,
Jim
Wow another great chapter, thank you !
You are most welcome, my friend. Short compliment but well received anyway.
Merry Christmas,
and Semper fi,
Jim
Living in Chicago it is hard to look at Midway as a small little airport! Looking from 1970s and Southern California is an interesting perspective. Before major Hubs and Commuter Airlines, (the Midwest perspective ) was it was a way to navigate around ORD for domestic travel….sort of like Kennedy/LaGuardia but not as defined!
I have always wondered about the crash with Hunt aboard as the quintessential connection to Watergate was to much to assume! It was a simple “overrun” that just burst into flames…maybe someone thought a plane full of fuel could hit a bunch of houses and most would survive.
I guess a nuclear accident at that power plant could have been a viable (considered option )leverage in the paranoid space of Watergate!
A sitting president does not need to create a nuclear accident at a power facility. President’s have real nuclear bombs at their ready disposal, in spite of what the public thinks. There has never been a move by Congress to make the launching of nuclear weapons more than the responsibility and having the authority of one man only (man, so far, maybe woman in the future). The question that was never answered was ‘why that airport?’ and why, especially, since there were no facilities for refueling that kind of passenger liner there at the time without special pre-arrangements. Interesting NTSB report to read, with about as much left out of it as the first Kennedy semi-investigation. Thanks for the interesting comment, as usual, my friend.
Merry Christmas and
Semper fi,
Jim
LT. Another great chapter, most interesting time in our history.
Merry Christmas to you and your family.
Thanks, Johnson, and a very Merry Christmas to you and yours, as well. Thanks for the ‘Christmas compliment’ and I shall endeavor to persevere.
Semper fi,
Jim
Every chapter leads us with a baited hook into the next twist of the story that is woven in the history we have witnessed. This makes it all the more real and plausible.
Thanks Dan, for your giving the books your own personal certification of some sort of authenticity.
Sometimes I feel like I’m writing about stuff that is simply not believable or it would already be known.
Take heart though, because yesterday the government kicked the UFO can down the road by modifying the
defense budget they are passing to delay release of the UFO files for another 25 years. There’s a lot
that’s not known…and with some really self-protective reasons. Many times, the public only gets to know
these days because everyone involved is finally dead!
Merry
Christmas,
and Semper fi,
Jim
My head is spinning so fast I think I’m going to pass out. What have you got yourself into now Lt? End of world, death, destruction and off shore money!! Oh my, wait, lions and tigers and BEARS. I had thought this was Alice in wonderland, now it’s more like the wizard of Oz, and who is Oz? Can’t wait for more . Semper fi sir!!
Thanks ever so much for the greatly worded compliment Bob. I man so happy you are waiting for more, as I am four fifths of the way into
and through chapter LX. Thanks for waiting impatiently!
Merry Christmas and Semper fi,
Jim
Wow just wow James is all I can say!!
That one laconic word. Great powerful compliment Harold.
Merry Christmas and thank you.
Semper fi,
Jim
I love reading your books a chapter at a time. I am so glad that I don’t have to wait a month for each episode. I have to hold my breath and wonder but last week we received a bonus. You must have been sitting on that one for a while as if you were keeping a promise to Kissinger. Now, the plot thickens again as we are left hanging with the threat of Nuclear War in the air. I used to believe that our leaders were truly honorable patriots who would tell not lie. Where did all that money come from, who killed Kennedy, and how did that airplane crash?
There are some very deep and serious mysteries I’m presenting background information about as the story continues to develop.
I mush appreciate your following and working to conclude what really happened as what has been portrayed as having happened.
Thanks for the compliment of the depth of your following and reading. Merry Christmas
Semper fi,
Jim
What a mess and it seems the only choices you have are either a den of hungry lions or a pit of venomous snakes.
Well hell, Chuck, like I haven’t been there before, although when I got home I had somehow
managed to place myself once again in jeopardy without rising off some horse’s ass general officer.
Thanks for the compliment in your comment, as ell and Merry Christmas, my friend.
Semper fi,
Jim
*ithJune Cobb, a player (??)
without further listening, paced* everything up, and replaced it in my closet ‘hiding place.
(*packed)
Well as you may recall James, I have had that funny feeling about the Chicago plane crash as well. Hmmm…
Time has come to listen to all the tapes and put together in your own mind what it all means as things are occurring all around you and in DC too !! Hopefully it might allow functioning “normally” ??
More questions than answers once again !!!!
Keep ’em coming James..
Semper Fi
Thanks for the great comment, as usual, SgtBob, and also Merry Christmas as the season builds into that special day.
More questions than answers. Almost sounds like real life. Working away this day on the next chapter and appreciating all
the comments, like your own, that support my effort.
Semper fi, my friend,
Jim
James, this has nothing to do with The Lion. In 30 Days you talked about a hill where your guys had a close call and Army blood was spilled in the A Shau. Would that have been Hill 937, AKA Hamburger Hill?
There were several peaks in that same area surrounding the A Shau and making up parts of its steep cliff faces. It was not the famous Hamburger Hill, but the same conditions on that ‘hill’ existed on Hamburger. The rabbit warrans of tunnels, like on Iwo Jima, like under the Gaza Strip…very nasty wartime stuff to try to deal with.
Semper fi, and Merry Christmas,
Jim
Leaving us hanging again! James, you have really developed your skills into being a very talented writer. Coupled with your almost-photographic memory, you get your readers to become a part of that memory.
Sure, I remember that plane crash; flew into and out of Midway a few time, didn’t like the cross-winds off the lake.
And do you think most military wives were, well, a bit less than “motherly”? I know my mother certainly lacked that talent, often stating that she “never wanted a boy child.”
At any rate, I do believe all of we readers anxiously await each new chapter, dwelling on “where does he go from here?” And you are right that you need to find someplace new – and perhaps a wee bit safer. Just be sure to take Bozo when you do!
Semper Fi, my friend – keep that word processor speeding along!
Thank you Craig for just a heartfelt and deep comment. My own ‘military mother’ was like your mother…blaming having to deal with
the children as a fault in the then non-existent industry to not get pregnant. The Catholic way didn’t work to well when Dad wasn’t built that way.
Midway is still kind of a mess of an airport to this day, although it does avoid some of the nightmare times at O’Hare. Thanks for the comment
and the loyalty through these times and Merry Christmas!
Semper fi,
JIm
James, One more small edit:
I liked the woman. She hadn’t been like ithJune Cobb, a player, and therefore a person
Drop “ith” before “June”
I liked the woman. She hadn’t been like June Cobb, a player, and therefore a person
Got it Dan and many thanks.
Semper fi,
Jim
I think what really bothers me is that this stuff continues today in government.
Situation ethics and constantly adjusting core movements of honor are part of the fabric of such high and powerful leadership, I believe. Things are no different, really, than they have been through the years. We simply know more than we ever did before. Knowledge can lead to satisfaction, success and happiness…but some of it, maybe much of it, also can lead to a lack of credibility, sadness and disappointment. The world, in general, filled with the human species does not react to knowledge gained in ways that are truly rational. The world reacts with belief. Belief in things known not to be real is more prevalent than believing in verified and factual knowledge. Mankind is not led by beings who are professing facts or those beings are not leading for very long.
Semper fi, and Merry Christmas,
Jim
James, Well the good news is that Nixon did not blow up the world. Back in the day the thought of the balloon going up aka WWIII seemed like a real possibility.
I await the uncovering of more White House intrigue.
Stay safe – and if you have to find a new place to live, may it be a place of wonder and fun for Julie and Bozo.
I commented about specifying the names of the tapes to differentiate the dreaded one from the one you actually listened to.
Some minor editing suggestions follow:
instead of laying and sleeping his life away like most cats
“lying” rather than “laying”
instead of lying and sleeping his life away like most cats
fast becoming, if I’d not already become it, a part of a living moving beast
Could drop “it”
fast becoming, if I’d not already become, a part of a living moving beast
I’d taken from the hospital up in Oakland so few years earlier
Maybe “a” after “Oakland” instead of “so”
I’d taken from the hospital up in Oakland a few years earlier
personal cover that weren’t made of the cheapest, thinnest, and flimsiest of materials.’
Drop single quote at end of sentence.
personal cover that weren’t made of the cheapest, thinnest, and flimsiest of materials.
they got any tickets taken care of it they got them in the future
Seems like “if” rather than “it”
they got any tickets taken care of if they got them in the future
I knew I was avoiding the reel that had the words heat-burned
Reel is unique – so maybe “that particular” instead of “the”
I knew I was avoiding that particular reel that had the words heat-burned
OR
specify which tape you wished to avoid
I knew I was avoiding the reel that had the words “Nix Hal Ehr alternative to pardon failure” heat-burned
potential of all of what had happened and why might happen very soon
Maybe add “it” before “might”
potential of all of what had happened and why it might happen very soon
/It seems all the above indirectly refers to the tape mentioned at the end of chapter 58 “Nix Hal Ehr alternative to pardon failure.”
In this chapter you do not listen to it; instead you choose another.
Maybe we could make that more clear./
The tape I chose read: “Kiss Haven Hal,”
Reword to
Instead of the dreaded tape I chose the one that read: “Kiss Haven Hal,”
I placed the tape into its box without further listening, paced everything up
“packed” rather than “paced”
I placed the tape into its box without further listening, packed everything up
“Next to the garbage dumpster, how every appropriate,”
“very” rather than “every”
“Next to the garbage dumpster, how very appropriate,”
I was there for all kinds of reasons but couldn’t think of anyone to discuss
“any one” rather than “anyone”
I was there for all kinds of reasons but couldn’t think of any one to discuss
was all I said, before I walked through, headed down the hall and toward my car
“walked through” is a bit unclear
Maybe reword
was all I said, before I exited his office, headed down the hall and toward my car
Blessings & Be Well
Thanks for the perfectly wonderful and accurate edits DanC. And the comments before you went to work.
Your loyalty and support help make this all possible, and your regular participation in commentary, as well.
Merry Christmas my friend,
and
Semper fi,
Jim