8/14/2026

 Friday, August 14, 2026

1846 American naturalist Henry David Thoreau was jailed for refusing to pay taxes

1929 The Jewish Agency for Palestine was formed

1935 FDR signed the Social Security Act

1945 Ho Chi Minh's Viet Minh movement launched a coordinated uprising against French rule across Vietnam following the Japanese surrender

1945 V-J Day, the Empire of Japan surrendered unconditionally to the Allies, ending World War II

2018 Pennsylvania grand jury alleged 300 "predator priests" abused over 1000 children over 30 years and Catholic leaders covered it, up after a 2-year investigation

2019 "The 1619 Project" produced by Nikole Hannah-Jones to examine the legacy of slavery in America was launched

In bed at 9:30, awake at 3:45; 0400 203.8 116/71/62 123; 69/77/67, patchy dense fog, partly cloudy.

Morning meds at 7a.m.  Eliquis at 6:20 a.m. and 6:20 p.m. Trulicity injection at 6:30 p.m.

Life in a war zone; life aboard ship.  Watching cable news yesterday, I saw coverage of the morale problems among sailors on the ships off the Persian Gulf, especially sailors aboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, which has been at sea for 9 months.  The sailors haven't set foot on dry land this year.  They've also been living with some serious toilet and laundry facilities, and food problems, much of the time at sea.  

The coverage brought back many memories.  First, of my 6 weeks aboard the USS Coney, DDE 508, in the summer of 1960, 66 years ago.  It was my first summer of active duty as a midshipman in the NROTC.  Secondly, of my time T&T in Quantico, 2 summers later, and of my time in Danang, in 1965-66.  On the Coney, we were berthed in the crew's quarters in the bow of the ship, and ate in the crew's mess.  Until one lives in the crew's quarters aboard a Navy ship, one doesn't fully appreciate what the term "close quarters" means.  The video coverage of the mess deck on the Abraham Lincoln reminded me of this: sailors elbow to elbow and, as we used to say in the Marines, asshole to belly button.  Living in that 24/7 is challenging even in the best of circumstances; doing so for 9 months with no shore leave to blow off steam is hard to imagine.  My time at T&T, another 6-week summertime active duty, was my first experience living in a barracks, which is nowhere near as bad as a sailor's life aboard a Navy ship, but is still living in pretty close quarters, with bunk beds, common head and shower facilities, and no privacy.  In Danang, I lived in a strong-backed tent for my first 6 months there.  I can't remember how many of us lieutenants shared the tent, whether it was 10 or 12 of us, but all we had was our cot, our mosquito netting, and our footlocker.  During monsoon season, it was like living inside a kettle or snare drum.  After my 6 months in the tent, I acquired enough time in-country to move to a corrugated steel hut with a little bit more personal living space and a common area where we could play cards or acey-deucy when we weren't working.  After two months or so there, I was transferred to Camp Schwab, Okinawa, where I lived in a BOQ with a private room; I felt like I had died and gone to Heaven.

The photo is of me sitting on the sandbagged bunker outside my tent in Danang, wearing my Korean War-era utilities and heavy leather combat boots before more familiar Vietnam-era camouflage jungle utes and boots became the norm.  Also wearing the dog tags that I still wear today: CLAUSEN, C D 087308 USMC Cath.

I suspect that people who have never been in the military, never served aboard a Navy ship, or in a war zone cannot appreciate what those sailors at sea off Iran are experiencing.  Actually, neither can I, but I can imagine.

My FB post this morning:

In the summer of 1960, when I was still 19 years old, I spent six weeks as a midshipman living and working on the USS Coney DDE-508, a Navy destroyer on the Atlantic Ocean.  I slept in the crew’s berthing compartment and ate in the crew’s mess.  We sailed through one hurricane and one tropical storm, and I spent many days suffering from mal de mer, sea sickness.  Sixty-six years later, I still have many vivid memories from that summer aboard a Navy ship, but what I am recalling most vividly today is the feeling of near claustrophobic confinement living and working below deck, in the windowless ‘bowels’ of the ship.  We slept in canvas ‘racks’ or cots, stacked 4 high, separated from the men right above, below, and next to us by about 18 inches.  You can’t sit up on the rack; you had to crawl into and out of it.  There is no privacy, none whatsoever.  Each of the berthing compartments housed dozens of sailors, crammed together like sardines in a tin can.  Indeed, the Navy’s destroyer fleet was nicknamed ‘the tin can Navy.’  The ladders (stairs) and passageways were wide enough to accommodate only one man at a time.  Crew members are assigned to the berthing compartment nearest to their battle stations.  The only relief from the claustrophobic conditions below decks was to get ‘topside’ to the main deck or O1 level during the not-often available time off.  In heavy seas or stormy weather, access to these decks may be forbidden with the bos’n’s announcement, “Now hear this.  Now hear this.  The weather decks are secured.”

I share these memories because I’m thinking of all the sailors and Marines who have been serving, unrelieved, on the waters off Iran and the Persian Gulf.  For many, including those aboard the  aircraft carrier, USS Abraham Lincoln, the normal challenges of life at sea have been compounded by failures in their ship’s life-support facilities and erratic mail service.   Some ‘care packages’ from home arrive on time, but others arrive very delayed, and yet others not at all.  These service men and women are on duty and on alert 24 hours a day, no 9 to 5 jobs at sea or in a combat zone.   Their work is demanding, with errors and sloughing off not acceptable.  They deserve our thanks and our support, and they deserve the support of the Department of Defense and of its secretary, Pete Hegseth.  It is not acceptable that Secretary Hegseth continually denies the serious morale problems among our sailors and Marines and other problems with delayed maintenance of the ships on which they serve.  When I was in Vietnam and long afterwards, how many times did I hear about “the light at the end of tunnel”?    Now we are told, over and over, that we are winning and that peace is just around the corner and there are no problems with our sailors and Marines.  They, and we, deserve better.

Janine Geske

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Thank you for this reflection piece. I watched a retired marine, who has served on aircraft carriers multiple times, describe the experience like living in a minimum security prison. I think in a lot of ways this seems much worse. We should be ashamed as a country, that in this day and age, our soldiers are being treated this way. 

 

Reply

I by no means denigrate the situation of the sailors on the 2 aircraft carriers, the guided missile cruiser, or the dozen or destroyers in this armada, but I suspect that the situation for the Marines of the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit on the troop ships of the Amphibious Readiness Group is even worse.  Unlike the sailors on ships, who have jobs to perform each day and night, those Marines are mostly waiting and doing what little training they can do while crammed aboard troop ships.  Usually the wait time is relatively short before deployment by airlift or amphibious landing, but in this wretchedly unwise and unnecessary war, it has turned into months.   I only served on a troop transport vessel once, and only for a couple of days, but found the experience near-suffocating, and the climb down cargo nets to the little landing craft, bobbing in the ocean below, a little terrifying.  My heart aches for those sailors and Marines.  I suspect I'll see some of them at Milwaukee's VA Medical Center when they are discharged, if I hold on that long.

N.B.  In this afternoon's edition of the NYTimes: 

President Trump [America's No. 1 wartime draft dodger] on Friday dismissed concerns about dire conditions reported aboard the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, an aircraft carrier that has been deployed for more than eight and a half months, much of it in support of the war against Iran.

Mr. Trump’s comments came in response to a reporter in Washington who asked about the reported conditions stemming from the extended deployment, which have included shortages of basic supplies, safety and hygiene issues and deteriorating mental health. When the reporter said that the crew members’ families were concerned, Mr. Trump said, “No, they’re not.”

The president, who was about to depart for an event in New York, was asked whether he was concerned about the crew’s mental health and whether he thought the deployment had gone on too long.

“No. No. No,” he said. “Not nearly long enough.”

A Walk With Rachel.  I took the hi-boy rollator that I named "Rachel" to distinguish it from "Judy," my lo-boy rollator, for a long (for me) walk from our house around the cul-de-sac at the end of our block.  I listened to Part I, chapter, 5 of Crime and Punishment, in which Raskolnikov anguishes over his plan to kill the pawnbroker with an axe.  He has a vivid dream of a group of peasants beating an old horse to death because she has become less capable of pulling a wagon. wakes from it and wonders how he can possibly think of committing the heinous act he is planning.  The chapter makes abundantly clear his murder will be 'with malice aforethought.'

Anniversary thoughts:  One year ago, Pat Gorence's visitation,   I drove to the East Side Library at North Avenue and Cramer Street for a pit stop, then up Cramer to Sts. Peter and Paul church, our old parish when Anne and I and the kids lived on Newberry Boulevard.  I arrived at about 1:15 for the visitation, which was scheduled from 2 to 3.  I was able to park in a handicapped spot on the church/school grounds, escaping the long walk that late walk from the car to the church that arrivals had to deal with.  I entered the church at 1:50 and there was already a long line down the center aisle of the church, where Pat's open casket was placed and where John Bach and the children formed a receiving line.  I was pleased that John recognized me (after I introduced myself) and remembered out first meetings when Pat started law school and our shared experiences in the Dominican Republic in 1997.  Christine Wilzynski-Vogel from the law school's alumni relations office was in the line ahead of me and we had a nice chat as we approached the receiving line.  I spotted LOA at the back of the visitors' line at about 2:10 and returned his iPhone to him.  We were able to chat a bit before I left for home.  I opted not to wait for him to get through the line so we could chat some more or get a cup of coffee because the wait promised to be quite long, longer than my bladder could tolerate.