Tuesday, September 03, 2002

At the wedding on Saturday

At the wedding on Saturday I sat with a dude somewhat older than myself, and got around to asking him what he does.  He’s a disaster mitigation dude for FEMA, and works the Pacific a good bit.  He described visiting Johnson Atoll, about 4000 miles from California and 8000 miles from Japan, a cheerful wad of volcanic remnant now used by the US military for decommissioning chemical weapons.  Since it’s about 8 inches above water at the high point and about 40 feet wide in a lot of places, FEMA needs to be able to move people and the toxic crap they make and use out of the way once the oceans rise high enough.  When his puddlejumper airplane landed, he said that an APC pulled alongside, inches from the ocean, and trained its 50 calibre roof-mounted machine gun on his U.S. government plane.  The gun was on his plane or the passengers from the moment they landed until they got off the ground again.  He was there to try to save lives and protect the ocean.  They just didn’t want him stealing any serin.  Later that evening we were forced to dance to disco music but at least the beer was plentiful and tasty…