Farm Downtime

“what happens when you let go, when your strength leaves you and you sink into darkness, when there’s nothing that you or anyone else can do, no matter how desperate you are, no matter how you try? Perhaps it’s then, when you have neither pride nor power, that you are saved, brought to an unimaginably great reward.”

― Mark Helprin, A Soldier of the Great War

What a week. Twenty-one hours in the truck, pulling the Mercedes on a trailer in the snow from Corning to Wyldswood. Ten miles an hour down I-95 in South Carolina. Arriving at the farm just in time to aggressively cook with Peggy for two days, sneaking two quick nine hole rounds of golf into the mix. Driving to PC to pick up a light end-of-year bonus check and host PT, our son by different parents, for gumbo and conversation way too late into the night.

Then yesterday a quick drop into the office, a call with a friend buying out a business partner (I could actually give tax advice!), then meandering down the coast road back to Perry, remembering what we used to love about this place. Oysters at the bar at the Gibson Inn, stone crab claws to take home for steaming from Millender's seafood in Carabelle, then a stop in the drizzle at the nursery in Wakulla to price orange trees and a couple palms so the neighbors can't see Peg crawling naked into the hot tub.

Last night we steamed the crab claws, watched a stupid old movie and dozed off on the couch before one last dip into the hot tub to soak these old bones before crawling into bed to sleep the sleep of the dead until sunrise and Slane whining at the top of his lungs for his breakfast.

This morning was country ham, grits, fried eggs, and a breakfast cocktail we learned to make in Dayton, Ohio, in the very early days of our time together. Part of our story.

Now trying to tack back to our objective for these few days, to relax a little and maybe read a book. I'll brine an enormous brisket I plan to smoke tomorrow for Dio's arrival. Tonight we'll feast on a pot of royal red shrimp, little steamer potatoes, and andouille sausage. Back in South Carolina they called that "frogmore stew", but Peg's banned the phrase because it sounds too much like there'll be frogs in there.

Lots of stories these days about errant surface-to-air missiles.

The Big Red Machine shoots down an airliner that drifted off course, then tries to play it off as a birdstrike.

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/azerbaijan-airlines-flight-was-downed-by-russian-air-defence-system-four-sources-2024-12-26/

Their military is so inept and dishonest it boggles the mind. But still dangerous; a mentally handicapped neighbor kid with an inappropriately large gun collection and extraordinary pain threshold.

Then again, our own Navy had its bad day this week when the USS Gettysburg shot down a Super Hornet that was just returning to the pattern. This first-person account reposted on LGM is absolutely fascinating, if it's real. the backseater of the Hornet describing the event:

https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2024/12/bro-what-the-fuck-they-shot-at-us

If you have trouble following (the lack of punctuation doesn't help--what to do with this generation?), here's a primer:

"Bingo": the minimum fuel to return to the carrier with minimum fuel reserves.

"DCA": Defensive counter air. Basically, the other Hornets are flying racetrack patterns between the carrier task force and the Yemeni coast, trolling for drones.

"Gave the DCA guys 14.5". This Hornet is being used as a tanker, refueling the Hornets on CAP (oops, another: "CAP" stands for "combat air patrol". DCA is a type of CAP. They offloaded 14,500 pounds of jet fuel to the other jets.

"Penny Benjamin": an obscure movie reference, to be sure. Penny was referenced in Top Gun as one of Mav's old girlfriends, an admiral's daughter. She also apparently showed up again in Maverick, which I couldn't finish watching because it was so awful. It sounds like there was a bit of buffoonery on the flight deck that shut down the carrier for a time.

"A kill with the 9x". The missile is an AIM-9X, a heat seeking air-to-air missile. We carried 9Ms in the war. The 9X is crazily more lethal, and more expensive. They're using them to kill little Iranian drones trying to sneak through to a warship. Your tax dollars at work.

"Hawkeye goes negative primary . . . the ship calls picture clean." The Hawkeye is the Navy's version of the AWACS. Actually a really good platform because, at least when I was flying, it was so primitive the controllers had to know how to make sense of a radar screen that wasn't cleaned up by the computer. "Clean" means there weren't any threats detected in the air, a major detail in light of what happened later.

"Up button 17, around 300 knots." They're on the common radio frequency for the group, basically approach control, at 300 knots (not very fast at all), descending to an initial approach fix.

"ICS." The Hornet's intercom. The pilot and backseater are trying to make sense of the fact that Gettysburg just shot a SAM at . . . something.

"SFARP". The Hornet top gun program.

"I saw the missile make a correction to lead pursuit." Anyone who's heard my story about dodging an SA-9 on the first night of the Gulf War has probably heard me utter that phrase. It's a sick feeling seeing the missile try to calculate a collision with . . . you.

"WSO": stands for "weapons system officer", the backseater, also known not so affectionately in the USAF as the "GIB", or "guy in back".

From there, I can't help you much. I'm fascinated by the fact that he pulled the ejection handle before the missile hit, when he decided there wasn't any chance it was going to miss. I have to say in my war, it never occurred to me to do that, so I'm glad the Iraqis weren't much good at their craft or I'd have stayed with the Eagle unto death. Also, these guys are in 6-10 foot seas, at night, and his rescue equipment either doesn't work or he doesn't know how to work it. We never paid enough attention to what might happen if that might happen, to the consternation of our survival instructors. It's never going to be you, is it?

Anyway, the human element may be a bad thing with our weapons so very lethal these days. I'm guessing a panicky air defense officer on a warship, worried about being the guy who was in charge when a drone snuck through to the carrier, almost killed two Naval aviators, and shot down a plane worth $56 million.

Time to go brine that brisket.