I could not talk to Paul, nor my wife, nor anyone else I could think of except one. Richard. He, Cobb, and Hunt had been intertwined in some fashion I didn’t understand, but intertwined they were, at least in my analysis of their proximity at the harbor, their special attachment, but at some sort of distance, from the White House staff and seemingly everyone else. My combined fear and grief over the passing of Hunt was haunting me. Her husband was being pursued by the legal authorities in D.C. for his role in the Watergate break-in and now coverup. There seemed no stopping any of that, and certainly no expressed sympathy for the man who’d just lost his wife. What kind of cold-blooded system was I dealing with, where I, at my great distance from it and unimportance to it all, was the only person who seemed to be hurt and giving a damn? I knew I wasn’t quite right. Lt. Jim Webb, the company commander of Echo Company, on my distant flank in Vietnam, had so accurately pointed that out one afternoon. Was my reaction to all I’d been through so far off that I couldn’t even understand the emotions of the people around me anymore?
I pulled into the harbor area. It was midday, so the workers were everywhere and work vehicles, as well. It was all I could do to guide my now dust-covered Volkswagen onto the part of the dirt road leading to where Richard’s and Cobb’s boats sat bobbing in their slips. Just before I made the turn to veer in that direction a figure appeared, waving me over. It was Butch. I didn’t have anything to say to him but couldn’t ignore his appearance before me.
The Volks shuddered in and out of one of the deeper ruts cut into the hardened mud as I pulled over, hoping I was far enough off the road to avoid being run over by some passing construction vehicle.
“In here,” Butch yelled, over the sound of nearby machinery, waving toward the open front door of his trailer.
I pulled the Volks off the mess of a road and parked it as snuggly as I could, next to the aluminum siding of the Airstream. I got out and walked through the door, wondering what Butch might have on his mind. The Army Corps of Engineers had scoured the bottom of the harbor all around the base of the launch area, no doubt recovering the Porsche and God knows what else. There’d been no word about anything that might have been found. If Little Mardian had been informed of the raising of his car, if he was being reimbursed by an insurance company or anything else remained unknown, at least to my ears or those of the PD or the Dwarfs.
“Coffee or tea,” Butch asked.
I wanted to get over to Richard’s yacht and not make small talk with Butch, as much as I liked him, I opted for the coffee, which I guessed would already be made.
“Cream and sugar,” Butch said, a certain laziness in his tone that caught my attention, “If my memory serves me.”
I waited while he poured, mixed, and then handed me a thick ceramic mug. Butch had something on his mind but there was no point in pushing him. I sipped and leaned against the folded-down table that served as the center of the trailer’s dining area.
Butch walked to the sink area and opened a drawer.
“The Army brought me an artifact, for some reason thinking it was mine, which I took more as a suspicion on their part that I might have had something to do with the submergence of the Porsche.” He tossed the eight-track tape from Little Mardian’s tape player onto the table next to me.
“How did that particular tape come to be found in the Porsche’s tape player?” Butch asked, although I knew now that he wasn’t asking me, so much as performing expressing his thoughts out into the air between us.
I sipped my coffee and didn’t meet his steady gaze, before murmuring an answer.
“The Doors are a very popular group.”
“That tape is your tape,” Butch said, a strange smile playing across his facial features.
He motioned slightly toward the tape with the hand he held his coffee mug in but didn’t spill a drop.
“I know it and you know it. Now, the question is, since you, with your henchmen, sank that car, why did you place the tape in the player? You didn’t do it for Mardian, as you had to know he’d never see, much less hear the music on it. You sank the Porsche, I’ve come to realize simply because of the insult the man gave you when he was right here where you are standing, not so long ago.”
I made no move at all, merely standing and staring at the man without any expression on my face that I was aware of. A full minute went by with neither of us saying a word or taking a drink from our coffee cups.
“You’re not the man you portray yourself to be, whatsoever,” Butch finally offered. “Little Mardian, if he knew you, really might just be very happy to still be walking around on the surface of this planet.”
“You’re, on the other hand, everything you portray yourself to be,” I replied, not wanting to confirm or deny anything.
I was also wounded a bit. I didn’t see myself as a dangerous, much less lethal man. I viewed myself as a boy, a damaged adolescent boy who had every intention of following Paul’s advice and working to live in redemption for the awful things I’d done.
“Which is why you’re standing here, and also why you put the tape into that machine before you shoved it into the harbor,” Butch said, this time taking a drink from his coffee cup before laughing out loud.
I followed through in drinking my coffee while I waited for what else I thought might be coming from the man.
“I know why you went through this whole arcane process, and I’ve been amazed since I figured it out. You put that tape in there so eventually I’d know that it was you who sank the car.”
“Why would I bother?” I asked him, wondering just how deep the man was going to go.
“You came home from the war a tattered mess, and I haven’t even seen the physical side of that,” Butch said, “And believe me, after figuring this all out I don’t want to insult you. When you got back here, not so long ago, you came to understand that everything back here is sort of meaningless in the scope of life, that all the antics and actions of your fellow humans are strange and almost utterly meaningless to you. You did all this because of your modified, enlarged, and substantially bent sense of humor. You think, without giving off one bit of a clue, that this series of events you created and quite successfully implemented, is funny as hell.”
“I didn’t know,” I whispered, setting my cup on the table.
“You didn’t know what?” Butch asked.
I reached over and grasped the large Doors cartridge in my left hand. I stared at it, thinking about what Butch had said.
“You’re right,” I finally breathed out, placing the cartridge gently back on the table. “It’s all grandly funny as hell.” I smiled, more to myself than to Butch.
Why had I done what I’d done and how could I accommodate it into any kind of rational construct of current and future behavior?
“You can’t keep doing stuff like this,” Butch said, his voice gentle for the first time. “You’re going through life backward and you must get turned around. Are you in therapy of any kind?”
“Backwards,” I asked ignoring his therapy comment.
“You’re busy fixing things, taking vengeance if you will, against the injustices committed by so many around you, particularly if they are injustices, you see as being directed at you. Think of your life ahead as a highway. Visualize it. You are going down that highway of life with a view to the future. Taking vengeance is going down that highway while you are staring behind you and committing complex acts to right the wrongs of everyone. You are going down that highway staring backward with your attention on the things behind which means you can’t be looking ahead at all. What’s coming?”
“I was wrong,” I admitted.
“Wrong about which part?” Butch asked.
“Wrong about you. You’re not everything you portray yourself to be,” I replied. “You haven’t been in construction management all your life, have you?”
“Take the tape as a reminder,” Butch said, not answering my question. “It is all funny, but the humor, your part in it, can quickly become just more of the many burdens you already carry. You probably thought about hurting Mardian. I’ll never know. But I think the man came real close and I don’t want you to be hurt by others coming that close ever again. You’re a real war hero, whether you define yourself that way or not. Back here, nobody, almost nobody, understands the monumental cost and burden that idiotic phrase of supposed honor means or costs you all the time.”
“How old are you?” I asked, my thoughts veering away from the substance of what the man was saying.
“A good twenty years older than you,” not that that means anything.”
“It means everything,” I replied. “You weren’t in Vietnam. I know that. Where were you in Korea?”
“You’re a bright boy, I’ll give you that,” Butch said, his smile returning, as he took a few seconds to take a drink of his cooling coffee.
“Changjin,” he finally said.
I stared intently at Butch’s face. The roughness of his skin and its inherent redness. I realized it wasn’t from too much drinking, as I’d originally suspected. It was from the skin being frozen and then coming back after the Marines made their triumphant retreat down from the ’Frozen Chosin’ reservoir where they’d been surrounded and supposedly trapped. Lake Ghangjin was also known as the Chosen Reservoir in Korea. Butch was a real combat veteran like me and a fellow Marine, although he’d not said a word earlier about being any of that.
I walked to the door, stepped through, and stopped. I turned back and whispered an expression Marines only used with other Marines: “Oohhhrah.”
Butch closed the door without responding, as I stood, looking out at the Marina and the ocean beyond. I was shaken to my core. Butch’s rendition of my condition and conduct was spot on, and complimentary, but I still felt somehow exposed by what I’d divulged about myself. I directed my glazed stare over toward where Richard’s boat sat in its slip. After talking to Butch I wasn’t as enthusiastic or rushed in getting in front of the man. Hunt was dead, and her death was highly suspicious, but I hadn’t heard from Cobb, Richard, or anyone on the Western White House staff about it. It was true that I was the lowest of the low on the totem pole of the compound power structure, but I was one of them and I was deeply involved.
It also irritated me that the government, in its many iterations, was such an intrusive, yet mostly silent player in my life and the lives of so many around me. The Army Corps of Engineers had gone to the trouble of pulling a Doors tape from a tape player taken from a submerged Porsche belonging to the son of one of the most important, but nearly nameless men in government service. Why did someone bother to give that tape to Butch, of all things? The cartridge should have had no interest in anyone finding it. Any investigator, unless interviewing Little Mardian directly, would assume that it belonged to the owner. Why Butch? I was once again left with a small mystery that might have serious consequences for me, although I couldn’t think of any. I’d taken money from both Cobb and Hunt. Cash is supposedly untraceable. I’d stolen tapes that belonged to the government, even if they were made illicitly or secretly. They sure as hell would never meet the definition of being mine. I’d committed several felonies, and involved others, in sinking the Porsche.
Butch was right in his analysis and his conclusion. I had to make some changes.
I walked past the mess of a boat ramp and toward Richard’s boat in a state of emotional shock. Butch wasn’t Butch anymore. When I lay in Yokosuka between General Master’s son and the son of Chesty Puller, I’d been visited several times by Masters, always thanking me for helping cheer up and save his son. Chesty had come only once, looking every bit of the rough and tough Marine his reputation allowed for. He’d spoken in whispers to his grievously wounded son but not to me. Butch now reminded me of Puller and I wasn’t comfortable with his analysis of my conduct. He was right and I was already making changes but they couldn’t come fast enough, what with what I was involved with. I had a therapist. I had a life or a variety of them. In short order, I’d formed a cadre of people who seemed to like me and whom I trusted, for the most part. The character Butch described was that of a suppressed, barely held-together murdering son of a bitch who would kill if even slightly violated.
Butch didn’t know of the doctor up in San Francisco. That event, which proved to be a non-event was even more pronounced than my modified expression toward Little Mardian. I had to stop. I had to move. I had to get myself right and I had to do it without revealing a whole lot about who I was, what I was, and what I was reverting to if I didn’t do something.
As usual, I didn’t have to board the yacht, cross the cockpit area, and knock on his beautiful cedar door. Richard stepped through and offered his right hand as I negotiated my way over the chain railing. For some reason, he’d withdrawn the boat’s gangplank and chained the opening.
“Me casa…” he said, but not continuing the Spanish welcome any further.
“Me bote…” I whispered to myself. The yacht was a boat, not a home. It was more a floating base of surveillance technology rather than anything anybody would want to have as a full-time home.
As I walked behind Richard, he veered to his right, or starboard, and stepped over to the electronics nerve center of the yacht, while Cobb walked into the cabin from the door set into the bulkhead further forward.
“Beach Boy,” she said, smiling weakly.
I could tell she’d been either crying or suffering some allergic attack. Her eyes were red and she was sniffling a bit, although padding her nose occasionally with a piece of toilet paper.
“June,” I replied, my voice soft as her pronunciation of my nickname had been made the same way.
I felt a lonely hollowness projecting from the woman toward me. In our other short meetings, she’d been tough, more like Lauren Bacall toward Humphrey Bogart. She sat down on the cushioned sofa built into the port bulkhead, overstuffed and comfortable. I stood where I was, not wanting to cross the cabin and join Richard nor wanting to sit with Cobb. I wasn’t sure why I’d bothered to come but was now much more sensitized after my short visit with Butch than I’d been before.
I’d been sick and tired of all the different roles everyone around me seemed to be playing. I was still hurt over the three Marines dying, for what now seemed like a ridiculous reason, if not completely by accident, and then there was Dorothy Hunt and whatever had happened to her. People were dying and the tape I was dreading hearing might have a whole lot more of that set to happen soon.
“Do you want to know why I’m here?” I asked, expecting no answer from either of them.
June sat complacent while Richard stood with his butt pushed into the edge of his electronics table, filled with computer screens and other stuff I had no idea about.
“We know why you’re here,” Richard replied. “Want a cup of coffee or something stronger?”
His smile seemed genuine, but June’s flat expression didn’t change at all.
“All right, why am I here then?”
“You’re here because you figured out that we are working with the CIA and you’d like to know your place in all of that and this,” Richard said, a big, seemingly out-of-place smile creasing his lips. “You here because you’re what we call a natural or an adept. You’ve delved deeper and figured out more than almost anyone possibly could have in your circumstance.”
“What?” was all I could get out, I was so shocked by his admission and then his stated conclusion about me following that.
“You’re one of us now,” Richard concluded, bringing up a coffee cup that had been on the table behind him to hold as a toast.
“I don’t even know what you are,” I replied, wondering just how much stranger my communications with those around me could get, following the rather bizarre meeting with Butch and now encountering Cobb and Richard.
“We don’t matter quite so much as you matter right now,” Richard said, putting the coffee cup down without ever having taken a sip, and slightly turning toward where Cobb sat silent. “Tell him,” he went on and then waited.
“You’ve got tapes, or at least we suspect you do, but this isn’t an accusation session. If there is stuff on those tapes that we think you somehow spirited away right under everyone’s watching eyes, then we need to know what’s on them that we might need to know. Since you are not being asked to admit anything here, what we want, for you to truly be a member of this strange ‘club’ surrounding you, is to know if what you get from the tapes, if anything, is stuff that you think we should or need to know. This is a very uncommon question for us to ask of anyone but you are a most uncommon human being…or whatever it is that came out of where you served in that war.”
My shock continued to extend itself. Club, I thought to myself while I tried to collect my thoughts. They called themselves part of a club, said they were working for the CIA didn’t admit to being members, employees, or even agents of that secretive organization. I was, once again, in way over my head and I knew it. I couldn’t be on my own anymore, not running around like I was, playing a game in which I didn’t know any of the rules, but understanding that it might be a life or death game at any moment, as I now believed Mrs. Hunt’s death had proven.
“Do you know what the “unseeable” thing is that took place or is taking place inside the containment chamber at San Onofre?” I blurted out, not wanting to reveal anything until I could somehow be assured that I would indeed if I was a part of some club, have the confidence, understanding, knowledge and protection such a ‘club’ might give.
“I love tests,” Richard laughed out, in reply, but said nothing more.
“You won’t see me again,” Cobb unexpectedly said. “What you’re referring to might be classified by the word you used but I’ve never heard it before. That module of San Onofre is no longer operational for nuclear power generation. There’s another project that’s centered there. Richard, after I’m gone, may trade you for that information, as well as introduce you to what you will become.”
I looked at Richard in question. It was difficult for me to understand what the woman was trying to tell me.
“Listen to the tapes, which you have or the word ‘unseeable’ which isn’t a word at all, would be unknown to you. Come see me with what you’ve found and some of the mysteries you’ve immersed yourself in will become known to you.”
Cobb got up and walked past me to exit out through the cabin door. There were no goodbyes, but I felt like I’d never see her again, not that I would miss the presence of her strange personality in my life.
Richard changed the subject, to discuss the beach patrol schedule, and some of the details of Gularte’s and Elwell’s participation in the Dwarf Project, as he referred to it. I fended him off, as best I could until he tired a bit. He extended his left hand toward the open cabin door.
“Go forth and do great works,” he said.
I knew exactly what he meant. There was no point in lying to him about the tapes. He knew, but he couldn’t know what was on them or what had survived their submergence in the harbor waters.
When I climbed off the yacht, I noticed that two non-descript men were untying Cobb’s boat from its moorings in the slip. The woman was leaving on her boat and leaving immediately. She was scared, and likely suffering some grief over the loss of her friend and co-conspirator, or so I thought to myself.
My thoughts blasted around my brain at light speed as I drove home.
Mary, Julie, Mrs. Beasley, and Bozo were all present in the living room when I got to the apartment. I brushed past and headed upstairs. My wife followed me.
“I’ve got to listen to this one tape,” I told her.
Unaccountably, as if knowing exactly everything I’d been through in the last hour, she nodded and headed back down to the living room. I pulled the equipment and box of tapes down from the closet shelf and put them on the bed, selecting the reel I wanted and then getting ready.
I studied the reel I was about to put onto the machine. I plugged in the amateur hobby tool I’d gotten from Coronets at the corner of South Ola Vista and Del Mar. The ‘wood burner’ as it was called, didn’t get hot enough or got too hot, either way making it difficult to burn the necessary letters into the plastic side of the reels. Whoever had made the tapes had better equipment and likely much more experience at etching such things. But, those original reels, once at the bottom of the Dana Point Harbor, but now, according to Butch’s allegation, were most probably in the hands of the Army Corps of Engineers, had been deep-sixed because there’d been no possibility, once I looked at my work, of counterfeiting it. I could read the scribble I’d made but barely. The notes originally taped to them came loose from the slippery spindles holding the tapes onto the reels. Confusing the things was not an option, not once I’d come to realize what might be on them.
I carefully and gently ran the tape sideways into the slot behind the playback head. The takeup reel was ready, finally. I knew I was stalling a bit. There was no way I wanted to try to sleep the coming night away while worrying in my core that the world might go up in nuclear clouds by morning, and even worse, having Mary know there was something wrong that I couldn’t say a word about…or there’d simply be two sleepless people laying side by side with eyes wide open into a hoped-for coming dawn.
The headphones slipped over my ears, as if of their own accord. I hit the play button immediately without any hesitation. I was in and there was no going back.
“I don’t want you to say a word, Hank,” the President said.
There was no mistaking his voice and there was only one Hank I’d ever heard of identified with the White House, in D.C., or where we were. Henry Kissinger had to be close by. I heard the sound of surf breaking on the sand, a distance away but the sound was distinctive. The conversation had to be occurring out by the pool, as the compound walls and glass were too thick to let in any sound from the outside other than that made from some storm.
The thought gave me goosebumps. I’d assumed, completely without knowledge or care, that my conversations with Mardian had taken place in secret. The microphone had to be located on the table, which meant it was also battery-powered. The surf would have overwhelmed any listening device placed between the pool area and the beating of the surf down on the beach. I was again shocked at the quality of the equipment I was facing, or, in this case, the President was facing. If the President didn’t want Kissinger to say a word, did he suspect he was being taped, and if he did then why use Kissinger’s name?
“If a pardon isn’t offered then my life is over,” Nixon said, his voice shaky.
I stopped the tape and rewound it using my hands to manually turn the reels backward at the same time. I hit the play button again. I wanted to be certain of what I was hearing. There was no doubt, as the tape played through the short sequence again. Nixon was slightly weeping.
“Even with a pardon, I’m not safe from state charges,” he went on, seeming to recover the former timbre in his voice. “There’d have to be a deal on that too.”
I waited for what seemed like minutes, wondering with some relief that the tape might be over, and I had it all wrong, despite what had been written into the plastic with my hand.
“Just nod or shake your head,” Nixon went on.
I felt like Nixon was nodding his head, but there was no sound to support the image that had formed in my mind. There was another long silence, but I felt Nixon wasn’t finished.
“They have to know in their bones that I’ll use it,” he breathed out, his voice going ever lower as he said the dreadful words. “And don’t shake your head now, we’re past that. I won’t but they don’t know that. They must believe. There’s also that stuff going on at the plant. Now that would blow the lid off the whole world but we’re back to belief. Nobody would believe that, but the voters don’t have to be involved, only them.”
I stopped the tape and rewound it. The long sequence had to be burned into my memory, in case of what I didn’t know. The allegation of a potential nuclear launch, a power only the President had, and an unstoppable power, was on the table but only as a threat. A threat denied. I wanted to believe it, but belief was what the President was talking about. The ‘unseeable’ thing or event was back in the distance, not admitted as to what it might be but now confirmed once again, and by the President himself. What could be so huge or monstrous that the President, in his time of great fear and weakness, might consider using its revelation to save himself?
The tape glided, hissing and spackling until the President’s words began again, the tone of them more frightening than the words themselves.
Another great chapter LT. Have a very Merry Christmas and a joyous New Year. Semper Fi!
Thanks so much Terry. Hope you have a wonderful holiday season this year and on into the next. Appreciate the motivation to continue. That really does help.
Semper fi,
Jim
The “unseeable” , we presume our inner self is unseeable to others as we stumble through this world, develope a poker face and hold the cards close. But the cat, Butch and to a minor degree the therapist have all guessed more or less accurately about what is swirling within. Richard and Cobb have seen the patina you presented to them, they are wrapped in thier own intracacies. I am exhilarated to see the transition in both your character and the primary investigation, keep it coming! You create much self examination as you lead us through your world, and that is a good thing!
I hope the cartharsis of your writing brings you a peaceful and blissful Christmas, we will be enjoying a busy house full of grand kids in ours… much to the delight and torture of my long suffering cat!
Well James, you certainly are a writer and you sure accurately portrayed your ‘take’ on what is going on and what is behind my presentation of it. The ‘catharsis,’ as you term it is fully underway. My PTSD has so diminished screwing up my life since this site was created and the special nature of the readers and particularly those who write on here have helped me (ad I presume a lot of other vets) with my own feelings of self. Thanks for that and I sure do hope your Christmas is a great one on into this New Year.
Semper fi,
Jim
Yes that multi-faceted demon we call PTSD. How it influences our interactions and choices. After 35 yrs of on call, violence, and working forensically within the worst of what humanity can do, I can now look back from more than just a survival perspective. One does learn to compartmentalize to survive. Your writing provides the opportunity to review much in my own mostly repressed memory and evaluate the influence in later life.
These are all good things! I appreciate you bringing us along for the ride! JR. was not a bad guy, just a guy he needed to be at that time. Just like Beachball and Snow white and the dwarfs.
Once we can harness all those components then hopefully we will once again enjoy life like a kid on summer holidays, swimming and fishing and not concerned about the rest of the world’s woes around us. I take my grand kids fishing on our dock and simply love to hear thier squeals of laughter when they catch a fish. I wish that innocent joy for you in this new year! I will be anxiously waiting each installment!
Can’t thank you enough for the presentation of your wisdom, no doubt gained by vast accumulation of your own life experience.
Thanks so much, not only from me but for all the readers on here who are getting the benefit of what you are concluding and then providing analysis of and great good sense.
Semper fi, my friend and brother,
Jim
“Go forth and do great works,” he said. These are great works. Thanks so much for letting us be part of your journey.
Thanks a lot, expecially at this time of year and Merry Christmas.
The compliment, like your own, do keep me going, as I write on into my Christmas
Day deadline for the next chapter.
Semper fi,
Jim
Loved this chapter and can never stop getting a kick out of the Doors tape “Yellow Submarine”. That was classic!!!
Thanks so much and Merry Christmas. So many wonderful people writing on this site, and probably reading without writing too. Thank you so ver much for liking the work and all its little offshoots.
Semper fi,
Jim
Always a pleasure,,reading your account of the events of that time! Strange but not surprising! Merry Christmas to you and your family LT!
Thanks Junior, good to hear from you after you being away for quite awhile.
Thanks for the compliment and Merry Christmas…
Semper fi,
Jim
My God LT, I am beyond shocked! I believe that you fully grasp the devastation a nuclear strike could cause and here we have a sitting president threatening to do exactly that to save his own conniving ass¿? Surely there is a fail safe procedure to prevent a single person from executing a launch! Wow! Barn burner of a chapter!
Merry Christmas to family and you, and many thanks for these books!
Thanks Joe, and no, to this day, there is no way to stop a President from launching for any reason he so chooses. They need to change that.
Thanks for the compliments and the Merry Christmas!
Semper fi,
Jim
Wow, I recall being transfixed by the watergate hearings & all the subplots @ the time but this shines a whole new light on it. What else will come out on these tapes. Still unresolved for me is what’s behind the deaths of the 3 marines & what they observed (the unseeable?). Keep them coming.
Thank you & Merry Xmas
The three Marines dying started my whole pursuit of trying to solve the mystery
and hold those responsible accountable once I figured out they’d not died by accident. Or so it seemed.
thanks for pointing that out as well as the ‘unseeable’ which is not a real word, as I discovered.
Semper fi, and Merry Christmas.
Jim
Wow amazing chapter
Thanks so very much at this emotional time of the year Robert. I respond to all comments personally on here and my relationships established on here have helped me so much with my own PTSD. Merry Christmas and thanks for being not of those guys and gals.
Semper fi,
Jim
Thank you once again and Merry Christmas Jim.
You are most welcome Ted, and Merry Christmas as well as my thanks for your comment.
SEmper fi,
Jim
Unbelievable, this continues to get more and more scary and confusing. Evidently it was more than just a break in that was going on back then, or developed into a more dangerous and sinister incident. Hopefully the end is reached before some of us reach out end!
Pete, Merry Christmas, my friend! I sure as hell hope we get a lot closer to ‘the end’ than the readers get to their ends.
Thanks for the compliment buried inside your comment too.
Semper fi,
Jim
Please dont stop writing. I suspect there will be more untold information coming. Cant wait.
You are correct Chris, my revelations will continue, as the secrecy back then appears to have been about
as tight as it was with all the stuff coming out of the top leader’s offices and homes today!
Thanks for the comment and Merry Christmas.
Semper fi,
Jim
Wow this is getting really deep how did you keep from throwing your hands in the air and calling it quits?
Merry Christmas Jim
There was no quitting at the time, not the way my view had become shaped.
I was trying to do the right thing and I had some pretty good reasons to be
following Paul’s advice to ‘redeem’ myself on a daily basis.
Thanks and Merry Christmas.
Semper fi,
Jim
I’m not sure re-reading the last few chapters is going to cut it. I may have to make an outline and start a spreadsheet to keep it all straight in my head.
Just keeps getting better. Can’t wait for the next chapter.
Merry Christmas to you and your family.
Clay
Thanks for the compliment Clay. My memory is both a gift and a curse. It’d be easier if I could blank out
stuff along the way, but it doesn’t work that way, although if I concentrate on parts of the past they come
alive once again and more comes forth as i write. I don’t use notes, a spread sheet and I don’t check things
on the Internet. I don’t have time!
Merry Christmas and Semper fi,
Jim
The air is starting to clear.
I can see clearly now is the name of a great old song. Yes, things are becoming clearer as to how all of the behind the
scenes stuff went and continues as I reveal more. Thanks for the comment and Merry Christmas JT.
Semper fi,
Jim
Merry Christmas LT.
Thanks JT, the Merry Christmas wishes I get on here are some of the most meaningful in my life!
Semper fi,
Jim
Wow Jim, I was trying to put a description of what you were doing, together, but Butch nailed it. My feeble dumb mechanic mind said that there is something I am missing, but now I’ve read it. Keep up the writing.
Thanks for the great complimenting words Leo, much appreciated and Hav ea wonderful Christmas!
Semper fi, and I will indeed continue on…
Jim
Welcome to the club my friend. A club like no other I’m sure. Nixon talking about blowing the lid off the whole world? Holy smokes Jim! What have you got yourself into! Another great read my friend! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and all your loved ones! Semper Fi James!
It is true Jack, although I didn’t see it at the time. I just thought life was dishing it out and I was trying to fancy dance my
way through. Now, so much later, I see that I had every bit of getting myself involved and continuing on a path that had only
trouble for a companion. I also understand that after viewing my conduct in the A Shau so poorly (my view) I wanted to do the
right thing back here. Thanks for the great comment and Merry Christmas to you, as well…
Semper fi, my friend,
Jim
Wow, what a complex and riveting chapter I’m going to have to re-read it.Looks like Butch is not the size 1 hat construction worker he gave an impression of being. Quite the Christmas gift you gave us loyal readers James. Christmas blessings to you, your family and your many readers.
Thank you ever so much, and for the really nice Christmas card too. The compliment is right there with your sentiments for
the season…and I share you love of Christmas and the pleasantries that come with it.
Semper fi, my friend,
Jim
Man, I have got to say Lt Stauss or Junior if I may; that I can barely handle waiting week to week for the next chapter! The excitement and intrigue … fascinating Life you’ve Lived Sir!
Thank you for sharing with us!
I do have one question that I would like to ask did any of your men survive the Ashau Valley?
Merry Christmas to you and yours!
Nguyen and the Gunny survived, as did about a dozen others. No word from the Gunny, as he wanted to be left alone when I ran
across him, and some of the others have commented on here but none in any kind of length. Mostly they are amazed that I have
remembered all of this and can write it down.
Merry Christmas!
Semper fi,
Jim
Oh, how could you stop the chapter there? We will all be turning blue till the next chapter, and it sounds like you have a job offer from “the company”. I have a family member who was recruited by them. Never would admit it but you don’t normally take a ride in a sub as a civilian. You seem to have reached the bottom of the rabbit hole, but what way to go, ask the cat… Semper fi sir and Merry Christmas to you all!!
Thanks Bob, the discussions at that point, and with Mardian earlier, were tangental and brushing, but
of iron in their way. The Agency does not recruit field agents. It selects them and there’s not much
choice when they do…on the part of the selectee. Thanks for the Merry Christmas and the usual compliment
in your writing on here this day.
Semper fi,
Jim
Merry Christmas to you as well Lt. Strauss. You mentioned Lt. Jim Webb. Is that the same Jim Webb who became Secretary of the Navy? I read his book, “Fields of Fire”. Very good read. You sure are in the thick of things now with the tapes. Very suspenseful!! Excellent writing!
Yes, Tom, that Jim Webb is the very same. He was company commander of Echo Company in the valley. When he became SecNav I went to D.C. fo this coronation, or installation or whatever they called it at the time.
Great man and good guy all around. Thanks for the comment and the compliment.
Semper fi,
Jim
James, you’ve been through some incredible stuff. First, in the A Shau, but then your recovery and rehab. That alone made me admire your character and courage! But this Watergate stuff was on the Armed Forces Radio broadcasts when I was in Panama.
My question is How am I supposed to sleep tonight as this totally floors me! I can’t wait for the next chapter.
Yes, Steve, it has indeed been quite a run, and the run was a long way from over as you read on into the future…or the past for all o fps now. ‘m glad you are
enjoying the story as it developed and develops to this day. Thanks for the great compliment…
Semper fi,
Jim
BTW, the conformation link seems to be broken !!
Accurate observation SgtBob, and thanks…
Semper fi,
Jim
All through my life my reading and comprehension level were always 2-3 grades above my actual grade. Its not often that I read things more than once in a given setting.
A masterful bit of writing I must say. From the previous chapters leading up and then this one.
Three proverbial bombshells in one chapter! Brilliant!
Now that’s a great comment for any author to get…and I just love what you wrote and how straight from the heart
you placed the words here on this site. Merry Christmas and I will keep on writing…
Semper fi,
Jim
Deeper into the abyss !!!
Great Chapter James, keep ’em coming.
Merry Christmas to you and yours 🙂
Semper Fi
Thanks so much SgtBob and I will endeavor to make this Christmas a great one, but meanwhile
I will stay at the writing and hope to get as great a set of comments next week as I’m getting for this chapter.
Semper fi, and Merry Christmas.
Jim
You have to get your next issue out quickly.
My curiosity is barely contained. This is tortuous!
Thanks for allowing me to opportunity to ‘torture’ you in the writing delivery.
Such a great compliment to read as I work on the next chapter.
Semper fi, and Merry Christmas!
Jim
STill here , as if anyone who has followed along would even think of missing a single word
Thanks Charley…and I have come to believe that there is a whole slew of readers who never write on here but
continue to follow the story and the writing very closely. Makes me feel warm and all the more motivated.
Merry Christmas and Semper fi,
Jim
Whatever was going on at San Onofre was the Admirals baby , lock stock and barrel . I can easily plot out a couple of scenarios as to the fate of the Marines , and their fates lay in the hands of one man plain and simple . Your buddy Butch isn’t cut from the same cloth as Richard or June but he seems to be approaching everything that you are looking into from a different angle and knows way more than he is willing to let on at the moment , my guess is he is from another three letter organization that could legally operate inside the States unlike the CIA . And now your two pals who have revealed themselves to be “club members” and want information from those tapes which they know that you don’t but do have . They should call themselves the Mickey Mouse Club , it would be a great cover name .
It is true that ‘the admiral,’ as you refer to Hyman Rickover, had his hand unopposed in all things unclear back in that time.
Whether he was involved at all with what was going on inside that dome is another thing entirely.
Thanks for he depth of your comment, which is as usual and so welcome to me and the readers.
Semper fi, Merry Christmas and thanks so much for the phone call!
Jim
Very political chapter, and your “introduction” to the Company. Perilous times then. Secrets upon secrets, like a reef only exposed at a very low tide. Difficult sailing, to be sure!
James, you have a way of completely holding your reader’s attention, as few other writers do. Even “The Boy and the Elephant” was like that. And you couple that with real-life scenes from our past.
I am old, and on the way out – Agent Orange taking care of that. I thank you for the diversions of my mind and body; a welcome, though brief diversion.
Semper Fi, my friend.
My pleasure to be able to entertain you a bit as you go through a tough time Craig.
Strange ‘introduction’ to the Agency that I didn’t really believe was that at all
but came to fully understand later on how the real world of espionage works, which is
nothing at all like the make believe in books, television and the movies.
Thanks for your support and I hope you can enjoy a bit of a Merry Christmas.
Your friend Jim…and semper fi, of course.
Holy S***! The longest and most heart-stopping of all chapters Jim. My heart is still in my throat.
Thanks for the great compliment Christopher although I con’t notice myself the difference between chapters from a
reader’s viewpoint. Merry Christmas and thanks for the great compliment too.
Semper fi,
Jim
Chapter say multiple issues, more than usual: Butch, Cobb & Nixon negotiations!
While the last 2 reveal historic reality, Butch’s analysis is fascinating to me…it describes, I think, a congruence is how we view life at least as “Cowardly Lions”. The impact of RVN and our resultant view of dangerous or live changing events as humorous or at least low risk! This also impacted by close personal imperatives ( wife and kids) that have also been changed!
Seems we are almost in a similar situation again!
Yes, similar to one like you who knows, Colonel Homan. Another of your deep and pithy comments that could only
be made by a fellow traveler.
Semper fi and Merry Christmas!
Jim
Jim, I feel a little like Alice as she arrived in wonderland. My head is on a swivel and there are more things happening at once than I can hope to keep up with. It feels like I am reading a Techno thriller novel, but deep down the tale has the feel of an autobiography.
The games that were going on while I lived those times unaware is frightening to me, just like today.
Thanks Robert for the great compliment, written in your own way. Wild times back then and I believe, today is no different if we
were privy to what was really going on behind the scenes displayed.
Merry Christmas…
and Semper fi,
Jim
Riveting as usual!
One edit in the next to last paragraph — “The ‘unseeable thing or even …” should be”The ‘unseeable thing’ or event …”
Thanks for the help Gary, as well as the compliment…and Merry Christmas to you and your clan there…
Semper fi,
Jim
LT
As usual the suspense is building to a fever pitch. I remember the Watergate fiasco and tricky Dick exiting, never suspecting anything of the sorts you are speaking of.
The general public was pretty deadened by the mass media back then, not like now. It was not all hysteria all the time.
I wonder how the mass media will treat what I’ve been writing if the sources there ever see it. Not so far, thank God, as I get
to continue getting these comments and responding to them, which I much enjoy.
Semper fi and Merry Christmas!
Jim
June sat complacent while Richard stood with his but pushed into the edge of his electronics
*butt
Thanks Don, for the editing help. You guys are such a great help to me.
Semper fi and Merry Christmas.
Jim
Darn James, get the next chapter out soon please?
Thanks Harold for the short but appreciated compliment. I am working half way through the next chapter this
night so thanks for the motivation to get it done and off…
Merry Christmas and Semper fi,
Jim
James, I’m moved by Butch’s words. “Butch wasn’t Butch anymore.”
It seems Cobb and Richard have answers to your questions. So far, they are playing coy by asking you to decide what to divulge without them asking questions that hint at what they already know. They have not indicated why they have a need to know (whatever). It would be interesting if you and Richard could go face to face and just hash it all out. I’m not holding my breath for that to occur. Key points are: who is the club? What is their chain of command? My guess is they are CIA “sheep dipped” to work behind the scenes on behalf of Nixon.
Some minor editing suggestions follow:
I knew I wasn’t quite right,
Let’s make this a sentence
I knew I wasn’t quite right.
SSgt Jim Webb, the company commander of Echo Company, on my distant flank in Vietnam, had so accurately pointed out one afternoon,
Let’s make this another sentence
Add “that” after “pointed”
SSgt Jim Webb, the company commander of Echo Company, on my distant flank in Vietnam, had so accurately pointed that out one afternoon.
???
/ SSgt a company commander??
Only you know. I’d expect a Captain or a 1st Lt.
If Webb was a SSgt would he have been a platoon leader? In any case, I’m surprised by a SSgt counseling a 2nd Lt./
but was my reaction
Maybe again start a new sentence
“but” can be dropped or left
Was my reaction
road leading to where Richard and Cobb’s boats sat bobbing
Maybe possessive for “Richard” “Richard’s”
road leading to where Richard’s and Cobb’s boats sat bobbing
recovering the Porsche and God knew what else
Maybe “God knows”
recovering the Porsche and God knows what else
Little Mardian, if he knew, you really might
Move comma after “knew” to after “you”
Could move “really” to before “knew”
Little Mardian, if he really knew you, might
haven’t been in construction management all your life, have you?
Close quotes
haven’t been in construction management all your life, have you?”
not answering my question. It is all funny, but the humor,
Open quotes before “It”
not answering my question. “It is all funny, but the humor,
Lake Ghangjin was also known as the Chosen Reservoir
“Changjin” rather than “Ghangjin”
“Chosin” rather than “Chosen”
Lake Changjin was also known as the Chosin Reservoir
I still felt somehow exposed by what I’d exposed about myself
“exposed” twice. Maybe use a synonym like “divulged”
I still felt somehow exposed by what I’d divulged about myself
low on the totem poll of the compound
“pole” rather than “poll”
low on the totem pole of the compound
one of the most important, but nearly nameless man in government service
/ Two suggestions /
rewrite
drop “one of the most”
Add “an” before “important”
an important, but nearly nameless man in government service
OR
Change “man” to “men”
one of the most important, but nearly nameless men in government service
I’d taken money from both Coff and Hunt
“Cobb” rather than “Coff”
I’d taken money from both Cobb and Hunt
I didn’t have to board the yacht cross the cockpit area, and knock
Add comma after “yacht”
I didn’t have to board the yacht, cross the cockpit area, and knock
nerve center of the yacht, and Cobb walked into
“while” instead off “and”
nerve center of the yacht, while Cobb walked into
stood with his but pushed into the edge of his electronics table
“butt” instead of “but”
stood with his butt pushed into the edge of his electronics table
You here because you’re what we call a natural
Add “are” after “you”
You are here because you’re what we call a natural
Listen to the tapes, which you have or the word ‘unseeable’ which really isn’t a word at all, would be unknown to you
Reword
Listen to the tapes which you have. You do have the tapes, otherwise the word ‘unseeable’ which really isn’t a word at all, would be unknown to you.
The amateur hobby tool I’d gotten from Coronets
/ I’m not sure where this paragraph goes. I assume you are going to attempt to burn in IDs on the reel. /
Add “I plugged in”
I plugged in the amateur hobby tool I’d gotten from Coronets
But, those reels, once at the bottom of the Dana Point Harbor
Maybe be more specific Add “original”
But, those original reels, once at the bottom of the Dana Point Harbor
there’d been no possibility, once I looked at the work, of counterfeiting it.
Maybe insert “my” instead of “the” before “work”
there’d been no possibility, once I looked at my work, of counterfeiting it.
The notes originally taped to them came loose from the slipper spindles
Maybe specify you taped the notes
Maybe “slippery” instead of “slipper”
The notes I originally taped to them came loose from the slippery spindles
ran the tape sideways into the slot behind which the pickup magnet was protected.
Reword
ran the tape sideways into the slot behind the playback head.
The blank reel was ready, finally.
Maybe “takeup” instead of “blank”
The takeup reel was ready, finally.
my conversations with Mardian had been completely performed in secret.
OK but could reword
my conversations with Mardian had taken place in secret.
recover the former timber in his voice
“timbre” instead of “timber”
recover the former timbre in his voice
“Just nod or shake your head,” Nixon went on.
I felt like Nixon was nodding his head
Maybe Kissinger is nodding?
“Just nod or shake your head,” Nixon went on.
I felt like Kissinger was nodding his head
They have to know in their bones that’ll I use it
Change “that’ll” to “that”
Change “I” to “I’ll”
They have to know in their bones that I’ll use it
The ‘unseeable’ thing or even was back in the distance
Maybe “event” rather than “even”
The ‘unseeable’ thing or event was back in the distance
Blessings & Be Well
Always interesting to read your rather well thought out conclusions about the rather complex assortment of activities and events
as I remember them back in that time.Thanks, as usual, for all the ‘minor’ changes you make to help the work be better and
how popular it is…among a certain set, anyway.
Thanks for everything and Merry Christmas to you and your family.
Semper fi,
Jim
James, I won’t be available to do editing the first two weeks of January. I want to encourage everyone to continue suggesting editing changes – but especially during that time.
Blessings & Be Well
DanC, that we will miss you is evident from the number of changes you made to this last chapter, as well as along the way.
Chuck and I, and the other readers who help, will limp on through. Hope you have a great New Year’s beginning.
Your friend, with Christmas thanks, and semper fi,
Jim
Jim,
Ho, boy!
LOTS of glimmers of light being shown on the unsolved mysteries.
–what Butch’s background is gets fleshed out
–Richard and Cobb are willing to let the cat out of the bag of who they are working for,
–you are informed that the former nuke power plant is being used for something else,
–even Nixon says/verifies there is “that stuff going on at the plant” (San Onofre)
–Cobb let you know Richard knows what is going on at “the plant” and will trade that info for some things you know.
Very interesting…
Tell us MORE…
THE WALTER DUKE! One point after another, in order and all thought out. Yes, to all of them.
Things are indeed building to a crescendo and some conclusions. I am on the next chapter, for the
New Years celebration, although the chapter itself will be out mid week. Thanks my friend and Merry Christmas.
Semper fi,
Jim