MEMOIR
The Pentagon, Trained Killers, and the Hush Puppy Shuffle
A true story
“Ritchie, we’ve got a hot congressional here. Get a response together, coordinate it with the OSD* staff, and have it on my desk by tomorrow afternoon. Somebody on the Hill wants to kill the [XYZ] program, but you and I know how much the Air Force needs that weapon system.”
“OK, Boss, but in the DIA* briefing this morning, they were rather convincing that the Soviet threat has gone away, and the entire justification for that system was based on countering a threat that no longer exists. How do you want me to handle this?”
“If you can take out that little shit in Senator Dufflebag’s office, the one who’s got the GAO* crawling all over us… Well, you’ll think of something. The SecDef* will have my ass on a silver platter if we don’t put up a good fight. Be convincing!”
“Aye, aye, sir!”’
It was Georgetown in the late-1980s. We lived in a classic turn-of-the-century townhouse of Italian influence, with a round oriel at the front, painted sky blue. On my street, one could bump into a congressman, stroll by the late John F. Kennedy’s brick mansion, break off one’s heels in the cracks between cobblestones, or, even more likely, step in a fresh mound of canine excrement. My former spouse promised…
