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1983: The Year I Began to Learn Of American Realpolitik
What is patriotism when the government believes that might makes right?
I’d never seen an airshow before, and I wanted to see if it was as exciting as people said. Those of us who worked belowdecks on the USS Ranger (CV-61) were told to stay remain within the skin of the ship. Only those who worked on the flight deck would see the airshow. The reason, scuttlebutt had it, was that we were just holding an airshow as a diplomatic gesture for some Guatemalan general. This made sense in that as soon as we left San Diego on deployment, instead of proceeding to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, we suddenly took a hard left and steamed south, off the coast of Central America.
“To hell with staying down here,” I told myself, “I’m going to go see what that airshow’s all about.” So I went up to the stacks (the “exhaust pipes” of the eight boilers below) up at the very top of the superstructure, almost the highest point one could go on the ship. No one stopped me, but if they had, I was going to tell them I had to go inspect the stacks. I’d already learned that a guy can get away with almost anything as long as he looks like he knows what he’s doing.
The airshow began, and I watched as some A-6’s dropped practice bombs, some of the electronic warfare planes flew by, and so…
