Geoffrey Lukens:  

oil, light sweet crude, Texas Tea, black gold. Yes, Oil happens to be vital to our great nation and, it's out there. Wake up, folks! Drill! The days of cheap foreign oil are history. Weird? Living through a hurricane/flood in the Big Easy; vying for the crown of the road with a N.O. city bus, in my VW beetle. We pass each other. A large wave sloshes up and over my roof, lifting us momentarily free of the ground. Laughing, I pat the dash, "Good Bug!" Days later, there'd be a small scandal (29 years pre-Katrina) about misuse of Federal funds designated for the flood control infrastructure, but diverted to other uses by local pols. After a 1978 moratorium was imposed on drilling within the US continental shelf, I rejoined the Navy, via a series of computer schools. Payment for such training? I served as a combat systems computer tech for a couple years aboard ship. Then, I got married and we started a family. Changes. Yet, I felt a need to re-join the 'Teams. Raising a family and, preparing for/going to war, whether it was to be the war in Viet Nam, Cold War (NATO vs the Warsaw Pact/Soviet Bloc), Lebanon, so-called "brush-fire" wars, Desert Shield/Storm, Somalia, Bosnia, or eventually, the War on Terrorism (or more precisely, the War against Islamic Fundamentalism). "War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed, degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."-JS Mill "Turn, and face the strange ch-ch-changes". -D.B. Coming of age during the Cold War, it remained in my focus; as a result, I minored in Russian Studies. Following several overseas platoon deployments, etc., I served as my SEAL Team's Communications Officer, responsible for commo' security, training and planning. I've been credited for some Navy technical pubs. Invaluable experience. Then, after a long wait, I got orders to language school. Weird stuff? April 30, 1986. Frogmen navigating up a fjord before dawn, in a rubber boat, a headwind out of the east, a drizzling rain, two days since we were briefed on Chernobyl. TASS-ITAR (Soviet News) described it as "an accident," but it was very serious. They hadn't yet owned up to its being a core meltdown; that morning, radioactive fallout was a concern. Evening of October 17, 1989. I was coaching kids' soccer on a field in Carmel, south of San Francisco. The ground undulated, children became alarmed. News bulletin, about a major quake. Returning home a short time later, the entire Monterey peninsula was blacked out. Unforgettable. Made two trips to the Persian Gulf. Did some work at a place called Johnson Atoll. Served with a bi-lateral Arms Control Treaties-monitoring process, related to dismantling all the intermediate-range ICBMs. Twenty-two trips to various sites across the Workers' Paradise, Mother Russia, on short-notice visits. Not Sci-Fi weird, but work that makes you feel part of a delicate, challenging process. Looking close, asking the tough questions, listening hard, taking notes. Call it a "Democracy Appreciation Tour." What one may discuss.., once, four of us escorted a large shipment, called Nuclear Test Hydrodynamic Yield Measurement, a seismic monitoring complex, from our Nevada Test Site to Moscow. There, it was re-inspected, consigned and placed in custody at their lab/warehouse. Resided in Hotel Ukraina, eerily reminiscent of that building in Ghost-Busters, you know the one. Met some very, uh...dedicated folks (KGB), in the process. 1989, Moscow, having a casual after-dinner visit with a power industry insider, when he lapses into "the sad truth, dirty, low-down" account of 'Chernobyl.' Late '91, days before deploying to the Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan, to observe a series of underground nuclear tests, the Soviet Union kind of imploded. Later, on a humanitarian aid mission, after the USSR's collapse, we traveled as diplomats via Trans-Siberian RR and Aeroflot between cities, meeting with leaders. No surprise, a mayor's office was still adorned with a bust of Lenin, the Soviet flag and other regalia (even though that era had officially passed), gathering information, coordinating aid plans. Descended into a coal mine, toured mills, factories, foundries, chemical plants. Visited collective farms, livestock production facilities, hospitals, orphanages and impoverished families. Met women, tougher and harder working than most any man, and I'm thinking, "That's not even right;" they have few of the options we definitely take for granted, and a life expectancy of say, 45. Widespread alcoholism. Surveyed airfields, to certify them to accommodate US aircraft. Inspected Storage Sites, assessing the potential for corruption. Aid was targeted at those marginalized during hard times. To a visitor, it was quite remarkable to get a sense of the players' jockeying for positions of power and security as their former, fatally-flawed system, collapsed around them. Crowds flocked to street corners, where truckloads of cabbages and hard bread were dumped in heaps for "Proletariat." Families were "gleaning" potato fields in mid-winter. We all ate a lot of sauerkraut as a staple. Mmm! In State stores, shelves were all but empty, save a few rusty, suspicious looking containers. Desperation was palpable. In the early days of satellite communication, I lugged an Inmarsat suitcase, with a collapsible dish, like an umbrella. Despite being the best available at the time, it'd perform marginally, depending on many factors. Didn't use landlines, they didn't exist. Thus, one winter night in Siberia, I arranged for a cab to carry us to the outskirts of the city (typically, a cab driver either wanted a drink of vodka or have you drink with him), to transmit my report. I used a little, old-school, low power radio, antenna strung between trees, and a code key. Innocent as it was, I was concerned, lest there be an incident, requiring me to explain to the local authorities what was going on. Inflation was so high at that point one actually had armloads of currency, bundled in bricks, to cram in one's coat; best to not reveal the almost worthless stuff, and definitely not flash $US. Think, could it happen here? The former centralized government was disintegrating, leaving local officials to express their distrust and resentment of Moscow. The interior of the country resembled a decaying, armed fortress-state (hmm..., lately, they're consolidating and reasserting their influence). Briefly, bluffing over an international memo of understanding, they demanded I pay an enormous bill out of my travel funds to refuel a very large aircraft, "Only $US, no more is wanted ruble." "Let's see.. Sorry, no, that we can't do." In the end, the relief work went off well. One windy evening, nearing completion of the unloading of our planes, I did a fairly extensive live interview for Russian TV. Oddly, the reporter thought I was from St. Petersburg! 'Seems I'd acquired the accent. Those last two years, deployed with an EOD detachment aboard the USS George Washington CVN-73, back to the Mideast, was interesting work, including serving as personal translator to the Dean of the Army War College, during a visit by VIPs from Frunze Academy, and Secret Service gigs. Once, I'd travel far, to reach a job. I'm less a traveler now. Still, I have a passion for the outdoors, and remote, isolated places. You adapt to a place, and then adopt it; anyplace is okay, if you like people. I met many decent, remarkable folks all over the planet, along with the occasional bad actors. I have a collection of precious, scratchy mini-cassette recordings, journals and interviews I've had with people, talking and singing, telling jokes, sharing their lives. They say they'd like to come and live here, but we'd try to leave them with a feeling that there is hope for their homeland, and that they could be part of a solution. After Uncle Sam's Canoe Club, I did a civilian version of explosive ordnance disposal work, for a worldwide contractor. UXO's turn up in odd places. Everything from the evil IED's mentioned on the evening news, thousands of landmines, to chemical ordnance like the mustard and nerve gas shells excavated around homes in NW Washington, DC. A few more years of that and, wishing to remain nearer home and family, I went to work for a local company. I sat for a State exam and re-acquired their contractor's license; making me Designated Employee. Candyce manages Customer Care for our local Dish Network affiliate. We adopted the Northern Shenandoah Valley of Virginia as home, while working in Washington, DC. A nice thing about our home is being only minutes from our city park and sports complex. For the past eighteen years, it's provided a lot of enjoyment to my family. Our third generation now participates in Parks & Rec programs, and it looks as though 'ol Grampa may be a fixture there 'til who knows when! I've carried my Red Cross WSI card ever since the '60's, so I can teach swim classes and lifeguard. Now I mostly fill-in, but I'm over at the pool quite a bit anyway, so it's fine. I still run the 10K's, and roller-blade. Each of the three kiddies have had a turn at it, accompanying me, riding in a 3-wheel stroller that's racking up a lot of miles - clearing the way with a little horn and exchanging greetings with the runners. I serve as Court-appointed Chief Election Officer, 18 years now. Now, 2014's General Election is upon us, an interesting, intense day, begun with a good cup of coffee. It's an on-going process, the work isn't for prima donnas; emphasis is on upholding the law and preventing fraud, while ensuring maximum accessibility. Still "Reelin' in the Years."-B&F.