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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Marc Cameron
Read between
February 27 - March 21, 2022
and said in his best Arnold Schwarzenegger voice, “Get to the choppa!”
Ha, ha.
As a helicopter pilot, he didn’t mind the wind. In fact, wind helped him with his hover when the bird was heavy, but it wreaked havoc on the hoist cable and made the rescue swimmer’s job all the more difficult.
It was a goofy thing and he didn’t admit it to anyone other than his wife, but he loved that orange suit. Wearing it along with the black SAR Warrior survival vest made him feel like a superhero.
in southern Alberta.
Cue the MST3K Rowsdower southwestern Alberta jokes…
His room back in Boise became a gallery of plastic models, and he bored his friends to tears with an intricate and ever-growing knowledge of each and every aircraft that hung from the spackled ceiling on bits of sewing thread.
Reminds me so much of myself back at age 11!
An uncanny memory and a natural knack for math worked in concert to give Slaznik an SAT score of 1464.
Okay, the natural knack for math does *not* so much remind me of myself!
the Wild Blue U. But a guidance counselor suggested he might consider the Coast Guard Academy. She told him that because of its smaller class size, the USCGA was considered more selective.
And then a tall, gangly, redheaded MH-65 Dolphin helicopter pilot took the microphone. He’d been last on the program—and, looking back, Andrew understood why. None of the other pros wanted to follow this guy.
The redheaded chopper pilot was a lieutenant commander. Probably in his early thirties, still a few years away from making O-5, where he’d be forced into grad school and flying a desk more than his bird.
“Let’s go with plucked from the jaws of death,” Andrew said, thinking maybe he’d hit a nerve. The pilot gave a humble shrug. “Thirty-seven,” he said. The room grew quiet as a church.
Contrast that with Kevin Costner’s answer to basically the same question from Ashton Kutcher in the USCG movie “The Guardian.”
Cadet Slaznik memorized every word of Reef Points—the pocket-sized cadet bible of Coast Guard general knowledge—gritted his teeth through the seven-week horror show of “Swab Summer,”
Kinda like “The Talon” at USAF OTS.
Four years later, after learning not to be such a self-important ass, he graduated third from the top of his class
an in-depth background where OPM investigators asked with complete sincerity if his mother’s family had ever urged him to spy for the Canadians,
Eh!
The air station had three MH-65s, but it was a rare moment when at least one wasn’t undergoing some kind of maintenance. The Coast Guard seemed to operate under the “have three to make one” rule when it came to helicopters.
Kinda like the Air Force with C-5s?
The seventy-mile-per-hour rotor wash drove the rain into the ever-present goose crap on the runway, throwing it into the upwash
Granted, different make & model of helicopter, but it reminds me of why the Chinook is nicknamed the “Shit Hook.” 🚁 💩
Rescue Swimmer Lance Kitchen checked his gear for the second time since boarding the aircraft. He was five-feet-ten, 172 pounds. At twenty-four, and a recent graduate of the monumentally strenuous thirteen-week Coast Guard Rescue Swimmer School in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, he was in the best shape of his life.
Once again, am reminded of Ashton Kutcher in “The Guardian.”
One man in the water. Simple. He could do this.
Boy, is he ever in for a surprise…
“Captain,” Alberto said. “The radar shows what appear to be multiple small craft suddenly in the water.”
Okay, who’s Alberto? Is he the Captain’s First Officer/Chief Officer, or some other rank?
Gumby suits.”
Lieutenant Crumb’s voice came over the intercom. “That ship’s going down fast. Two more just did a Peter Pan off the bow.”
The RAT OUT—radar altimeter alarm—sounded at forty feet above the water.
Don’t you want me to visit someplace the ChiComs say is off-limits?” Ryan’s wife bristled at the use of “ChiComs,” and he’d had to remind Katie it wasn’t especially diplomatic for the President’s daughter to use the word in reference to the communist Chinese—no matter what she might overhear him saying in the White House.
Fuck it; “ChiComs” is totally apropos, diplomacy be damned!
His daughter’s logic was sound and emotional—leaving Ryan to live in mortal fear that she would decide to be an attorney.
Ha ha.
They were standing with his old friend and mentor, the late Admiral James Greer.
R.I.P. Jim Greer.
“going off to restore poor people’s vision when I need you here to rub my aching foot.”
“MY FOOT HURTS!”—Brooks W. Wilson (LT, Anaheim PD, Ret.)
He left the blood-red power tie on the bed, preferring to wait until he finished breakfast before he consigned himself to the noose.
a buttered croissant and two poached eggs.
Mmmm, poached eggs…
along with the Post and The New York Times
You mean the “Compost” and “The New York Slimes.”
As a boy, growing up in the house with his policeman father, power had smelled like Hoppes No. 9 gun oil and strong coffee.
As one of my gun store buddies used to say, “Nothing sells guns faster than the smell of Hoppe’s No. 9!”
Ryan preferred a BLUF report—Bottom Line Up Front.
How Navy-like—oh yeah, that’s right, Jack had once been a Marine “elltee” way back in the day.
He’d cut his teeth in the intelligence community as an analyst, playing what-if games with world events, and could spend hours delving into the nuances of a single issue—and enjoying the hell out of it. But he wasn’t in the rank and file of the IC anymore.
his delicious Navy coffee—a phrase that did not come easily to the mind of a former Marine—and
She was more than a member of his inner circle, she was a friend—and in Washington, friends were as rare as genuine statesmen.
The door opened again and Bob Burgess, secretary of defense,
Named for Anthony Burgess?
The meeting breezed along, hitting the high points about Russia, the Ukraine,
How prescient (as I read this passage in March 2022)!
FONOP was the acronym for Freedom of Navigation Operation.
“Don’t misunderstand me, sir. I’m referring to the optics presented to the Chinese public, not President Zhao and the party mandarins.” “Pun intended,” Ryan said, arms crossed, chin on his fist.
Weibo was the microblogging site that was the Chinese answer to Twitter.
the Zhongnanhai
Per Wikipedia: “Zhongnanhai is a former imperial garden in the Imperial City, Beijing, adjacent to the Forbidden City; it serves as the central headquarters for the Communist Party of China and the State Council of China.”
People can be fed up with the party and still have a hell of a lot of contempt for us.”
“There’s that old Chinese curse,” Burgess said. “May you live in interesting times.”
A quote I’ve cited used many times.
Ryan sat back in his chair. “I think Bobby Kennedy just made that one up.”
Ha, never heard that one before!
“A game of chicken only works if neither party knows when the other will flinch,” she said. “It wasn’t too many months ago that you demonstrated to China that you are willing to—excuse me, but there’s no other way to say it—bomb the shit out of them.
Such a refreshing contrast to Beijing Biden.
You can start with Australia and Japan.
Two members of The Quad!
The White House Advance Office went out at least three times before any presidential travel such as to the G20. The first trip, five months prior to the event, was called the survey. The second, known as a pre-advance, occurred a month or so before the actual event. A final advance took place three weeks later, a week prior to the President’s arrival.
Commander Robby Forrestal stepped into the Oval a moment later,
A direct descendant of former SECNAV James Forrestal?
It never ceased to move Ryan how much time in action these young servicemen now faced before they were thirty-five.
I have to admit, the Coasties are doing an incredible job here.” “High praise from a Navy man.” Ryan smiled.
Heh heh, Semper Paratus AND Anchors Aweigh!!
“Nothing but WAGs so far, Mr. President.” Commander Forrestal had been around long enough to know that Ryan had enough information flying across his desk; he didn’t have time for Wild-Ass Guesses.
“Thank you, Robby,” the president said. “Didn’t your son have a football game last weekend?” The commander smiled. “He did, sir. Ran for a total of sixty-four yards.” “Not bad for an eleven-year-old in Pop Warner,” Ryan said. “Be careful, the Patriot scouts will be looking at him before he knows it.” “I’ll tell him you said that, sir,” Forrestal said, excusing himself with a broad grin. Not everyone got to pass on kudos to their kid from the President of the United States.
Patriots, hell, let the Washington Redskins, er, Commanders draft him please!!
