Tales & Trails of a Traveling Wiseguy

As people discuss competing ideas for why the US invaded Venezuela and kidnapped its sitting president last weekend, and even President Donald Trump and his various surrogates offer rotating justifications for it, I keep coming back to one sickening possibility that struck me when I first heard news of the invasion/abduction a week ago:

Trump did it to flush discussion of Jeffrey Epstein out of the news cycle.

It's clear that Trump has getting hit hard by Epstein news up until a week ago. After campaigning on the issue for many months as a candidate, he and his seemingly crooked Attorney General, Pam Bondi, clammed up on releasing the files once they took office. Bondi went from saying, "The folders are on my desk," to saying that no folders ever existed. The controversy stayed in the news, as some of Trump's own supporters began wondering if he was hiding personal involvement with the now-deceased child sex trafficker. Enough Republicans in Congress crossed over to join Democrats in voting on a bill last month to compel the DOJ to release the files. Trump, always wanting to portray himself as the winner in any fight, suddenly switched from suppressing the files to signing Congress's bill into law.

But Trump has an even more powerful media play than switching sides at the last moment to align himself with the winning side. When he's getting too much negative coverage in the media he does something outrageous to flush it out of the news cycle.

Anyone who's earnestly watched Trump for the past 10 years has seen him do this countless times and knows it's true. But for those who are unconvinced by my saying it, the idea behind it was memorably articulated by Trump's first chief strategist and propagandist, Steve Bannon:


Flooding the zone takes two forms. One, Trump and his surrogates spin an issue in favorable terms. They outright lie about what actually happened. That's the "shit" part. The media will try to fact-check the lies, but if lies are repeated and added to frequently enough, it overwhelms the fact-checking and all the media can do is repeat it. That's the "flood" part. We're seeing a textbook example of this right now with the ICE shooting of an unarmed American citizen in Minneapolis.

Two, a new issue can be used to flood an older issue right off the page. News focuses on what's new. They'll stick with one issue, like the Epstein files, until something new and pressing demands attention. Trump has shown himself to be a master of media manipulation at flooding unwanted stories out of the news cycle by saying or doing something provocative. He's been doing this for 10 years as a candidate and president. And it seems like that's exactly what's going on here.

---

On Saturday morning military operatives of the U.S. government invaded Venezuela, engaged in lethal combat with the military there, and kidnapped the sitting president, Nicholas Maduro. Mr. Maduro was removed to New York City, where he was put in prison awaiting criminal charges under U.S. law for drug dealing. While U.S. President Donald Trump has declared that the purpose of this operation was to make the US safe from narco-terrorists, he added that only after touting that the US was seizing Venezuela's oil industry. Venezuela, which has the largest proven oil reserves of any country in the world. Yes, Trump literally said the quiet part out loud: he did it to take their oil.

Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot. Over?

There are so many things that are wrong with this situation. I'll try to compile a short list:

1. The US attacked a sovereign country in an act of undeclared war.

2. The US president engaged in an act of war against a sovereign country, without Congress declaring war and without even the thinnest evidence of there being exigent circumstances to protect US citizens. (It's a lesson I remember being repeated weekly in US Government class in the 7th grade: Only Congress May Declare War.)

3. Rather than fight a war by the modern rules of warfare, targeting the enemy's military and factors of military production, we went straight for removing their commander in chief.

4. President Trump has cited "The Donroe Doctrine", making a pun on the name of the Monroe Doctrine, an infamous policy statement from 1823 that asserted the US has the right to engage at will, militarily, to achieve its desired outcomes in other countries in the western hemisphere, but no other country in the world has such a right.

5. The argument that Trump had to act swiftly and unilaterally in the name of national security because Maduro is allegedly involved in drug trade is belied by Trump's lack of coherent policy on punishing drug kingpins, especially foreign-leader-drug-kingpins. Just last month he pardoned former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was serving a 45-year sentence "for cocaine importation and related weapons offenses" according to the Justice Department. He was "at the center of one of the largest and most violent drug-trafficking conspiracies in the world," helping to bring more than 400 tons of cocaine, according to the Justice Department. Trump claimed the pardon was because the administration of former president Joe Biden "treated [Hernandez] very unfairly" while of course providing absolutely zero evidence of any unfair treatment.

Georgia Travelog #5
Talahi Island, GA - Monday, 7 Apr 2025, 3:30pm

Today we continued touring in/near Savannah, Georgia with my sister, B. Her husband and daughter didn't join us as they were busy with work and school, respectively. Whereas yesterday we toured in downtown Savannah today we went out to the coast east of town. Our first stop— well, second if I count stopping for lunch along the way— was at Tybee Island.



There are miles of public beaches on Tybee Island. We drove to near the southern end of the island, where there's a pavilion and pier and a cluster of hotels and shops. I'm not sure why we did that; we didn't need or even particularly want any of the touristy stuff. Though after walking around in the sand for an hour it was satisfying to get ice cream at an ice cream stand a block back from the beach.

The weather wasn't the greatest for having a beach day so we didn't make a day of it. The water was cold and the wind was gusting hard as a storm front moved into the area (it would hit later in the day). In the photo above you can see our hats flapping in the strong wind. Our lanyards were necessary to keep them from flying off our heads every 20 seconds.

After the beach we drove back inland a bit to Fort Pulaski National Monument.



Fort Pulaski is a Civil War-era military fort downriver from Savannah. It was seized by the Confederates prior to the declaration of war in 1861 and then captured by the Union in 1862. It has an interesting bit of significance in military history. Its capture by the Union army in 1862 demonstrated the power of rifled canons.

Smooth bore canons were considered incapable of breaching the masonry walls of a fort such as this, especially from the distance of 1.0 - 1.5 miles away where the Union placed its canons. But rifled bore canons changed the equations. They could fire heavier projectiles farther, with greater velocity, and with higher accuracy. When the Union opened fire on Fort Pulaski they breached the walls on the second day of battle. The commander of the fort surrendered 2 hours later. The Union held the fort through the remainder of the war. It was decommissioned about 10 years later as the standardization of rifled canons made it obsolete.

In the news yesterday was announced a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas. The deal, brokered by the US, Qatar, and Egypt, would see Israeli hostages held in Gaza returned and a number of Palestinian prisoners in Israel released in the first of three phases. The first phase would also involve Israel withdrawing its troops from most of Gaza and allowing humanitarian aid to flood in. Example news coverage: CNN.com article, 15 Jan 2025.

One might wonder while hearing this objectively good news, Why now? What took so long? This war, now in its 16th month, was instigated by Hamas's surprise October 7 attack on Israel killing 1,400 people and taking as hostages over 100 people, most of whom were civilians. One ceasefire was attempted over a year ago; it lasted less than a week. And the framework agreed to yesterday is one US negotiators in the Biden administration first proposed last May. They've been working on getting acceptance for 8 months.

So why now? Why after 16 months of grinding war and significant humanitarian crisis, and after 8 months of negotiation on the same framework? Well, first, such negotiations are never fast. The sides have got to fight it out until their positions, and future possibilities, become clear enough. Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz famously said, with slight paraphrasing, "War is diplomacy by other means." But still, why now? What changed recently to get the parties to shift their form of diplomacy from guns and bombs to words and handshakes? To me it's three things:

1. Hamas's military support has been significantly degraded. Destroying Hamas's own means of making war and launching terrorist attacks has a constant in the conflict since its start. Even six months ago a lot of it had been destroyed... and what was left was very well hidden. But what's really changed in the past few months is that Hamas's allies have suffered major losses. Hezbollah lost hundreds of its leaders in a carefully orchestrated, intelligence-driven attack by Israel a few months ago. You may remember that as the one with the exploding pagers. And walkie-talkies. Then last month rebels swiftly ousted Syrian leader Bashar Assad, who fled to Russia. The common denominator behind all three of these— Hamas, Hezbollah, Assad— is that they've been propped up by Iran. Iran has lost significant resources and international standing as its clients have been beaten. Plus, tough international sanctions against Iran have continued to bite. The bottom line of Iran having fewer proxies and less money to throw at them is that Hamas military leaders now no longer see themselves being as capable of achieving anything, even their leaders' personal survival, through continued war.

2. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is in a stronger position domestically. It's been charged many times over the past umpteen months that one reason Israel reached a ceasefire agreement is because it doesn't want one. While that statement on its face may seem like a tautology, what it's pointing to is Netanyahu's precarious position in Israeli politics. He's been clinging onto power by a small margin and will face prosecution on corruption charges once he's no longer in power. Thus he's kept the country in a state of war, many allege, because the active war blunts his opponents' push to remove him. And he's held onto a slim governing majority that includes far-right parties that are war-mongers. With recent successes such as that exploding-pager victory over Hezbollah, and Assad's fall in Syria, Netanyahu is enjoying broader support at him. He finally has enough political margin to risk crossing his far-right coalition members.

3. The President Trump Wildcard. One thing I wondered right away when I heard news of the ceasefire agreement yesterday morning was why this thing negotiated by President Biden's envoys was coming to fruition only in the last few days of his administration. Was "Get it done before Trump comes in" a factor? Indeed, president-elect Trump claimed credit for the agreement on his Truth Social media platform even before President Biden announced it officially in a news conference. But did Trump really do anything? I'd say yes and no. No, he didn't participate in the negotiations directly. His people were involved at the very end, as part of the Biden team's commitment to a smooth handover— something, I'll note, Trump and his team absolutely did not do in January 2020— but they certainly weren't involved in the 8 months of negotiating it took to get to yesterday's agreement. And Trump's personal contribution was his fear factor. As he's signaled unconditional support for Israel throughout his campaign, called for even tougher actions against Hamas, and rejected all concerns about humanitarian crisis in Gaza, Hamas's leadership had to realize that making a deal under Biden was their last, best chance.

Update: Even as I posted this journal entry, the ceasefire deal was already getting wobbly with threatened resignations from Netanyahu's coalition and ongoing attacks.

Yesterday it was in the news that thousands of pagers used by Hezbollah terrorists and allies exploded in Lebanon. Today I awoke to news that hundreds of walkie-talkies used by the same group had exploded. This coordinated walkie-talkie attack came one day after the coordinated pager attack.

News stories have updated the injury toll throughout the day as reports have rolled in. The latest I've seen is that Lebanon's health ministry reports 14 people had been killed and 450 injured on Wednesday, while the death toll from Tuesday's pager explosions rose to 12, including two children, with nearly 3,000 injured. (Source: Reuters article, 18 Sep 2024.) Meanwhile, an investigative reporter in Israel, Ronen Bergman, has written that he thinks the death toll is actually much higher. (Source: The Times of Israel article, 18 Sep 2024.)

These attacks will certainly have members of terrorist group Hezbollah looking at all their electronic devices with concern and fear. Already they switched from cell phones to pagers months ago after the group warned its members that Israel was able to spy on them through their cellphones. Many members, particularly those responsible for managing operations, also were issued walkie-talkies. Tuesday their pagers blew up, Wednesday their two-way radios. What'll they use next, carrier pigeons? And how soon before we read about exploding pigeons?

A week ago I watched the pilot episode of Timeless, a 2016-2018 TV series about time travel. It's a cat-and-mouse type story where two groups have time machines. One is trying to change things the in the past, the other is chasing after them trying to prevent world-altering changes. I already wrote a few thoughts about the pilot in general. Now I'd like to share three thoughts about specifics in the in S1E1, "Hindenburg". Spoilers marked.

1. The "What If?" Game

Early on in the episode we learn the thieves have travel back in time to the day the Hindenburg explosion in 1937. The characters challenge each other— and, by extension, us— to think how history could be different if there was no Hindenburg disaster.

"It could have made Germany stronger going into WWII," Hawk suggested.

"Ennnnh," I objected. "The Hindenburg was a bad design with its hydrogen flotation. A successful demo success would have risked German aeronautics pouring more time and money into a fatally flawed design."

"But a success there could have intimidated the US into staying out of WWII..."

Except the US did stay out of WWII for two years. And when the Japanese thought they could intimidate us by bombing Pearl Harbor and destroying half our Pacific fleet, they miscalculated. Their attack, which did hobble our Pacific fleet, galvanized the country into action. It spurred us to join WWII and, more importantly, awoke us from a long stupor of underdeveloped manufacturing capability.

Ultimately the time-thieves' plan was ( Spoiler (click to open) )

2. An Oddly Timed Plot Reveal

At the climax of the episode the writers make a plot reveal that seems premature. ( Spoiler (click to open) )

3. "Killing [them] in the Cradle"

As the three protagonists are discussing what happened before they return to present day, Lucy declares to the other two, ( Spoiler (click to open) )

Israel has begun its counterattack against Hamas forces in the Gaza Strip. It follows Hamas's shocking raids on Oct 7 which killed over 1,000 people (figure updated with latest estimates), most of whom were civilians deliberately targeted at a music festival and in their own homes. Unfortunately for Israel, this war is a no-win proposition.

First, not striking back at Hamas is not an option. The Oct. 7 attack was big enough, brazen enough, and barbaric enough that it cannot go unanswered. Moreover, the scope of attack revealed that Hamas has built considerable terrorist war-fighting capability in the Gaza Strip. They have several thousand trained fighters, ample munitions, sophisticated leadership and operational expertise, and training grounds. Israel cannot simply leave this hostile military within its borders untouched.

Clearly Israel must act, militarily. The problem, then, is what degree of success can it achieve by striking back. And that's where it seems there's no reasonable definition of a "win" they can achieve. Consider:

1. Those thousands of terrorist fighters are not going wear uniforms or guard terrorist bases. They will melt in with the general population. (That's a core fact of terrorism and asymmetric warfare.) Likely many of them were among the first refugees to flee south when Israel warned that it would invade the northern part of the Gaza Strip.


2. The invasion is hugely damaging to civilians and civilian infrastructure. Israel cut off power and supplies to the Gaza Strip two weeks ago. That's part of isolating and disempowering the terrorists... but it's also created a humanitarian crisis with 1,000,000+ civilian victims.


3. In addition to the general problem of civilian harm when fighting a war in a densely occupied area, Israel must deal with the fact Hamas hides its war materiel in civilian infrastructure. Past strikes have reveals that guns are stored in hospitals, bombs are kept in schools, and officers meet to make war plans in occupied residential buildings. Thus neutralizing Hamas's war-making capability will mean these places are targets. That not only makes the humanitarian impact worse but will play terribly in the news.

Sadly Israel will find its loses international support the longer it pursues this war.

On Saturday Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that controls the Gaza Strip, launched significant attacks against Israeli military and civilian targets. They fired hundreds if not thousands of rockets while soldiers attacked several military bases. In the initial round of the attack more than 100 900 Israelis were killed, hundreds more wounded, and many over 100 hostages were taken— both military personnel and civilians mostly civilians, whom Hamas deliberately slaughtered. As fighting continued Saturday and into its second day on Sunday, Israel declared war.

One of the first questions people ask is, "What started this war?" Well, there are different answers one could give to that depending on whether one looks back 2 years, 20 years, 75 years (specifically to 1948), or 1,000 years. Oddly Hamas itself gave an answer that looked back a mere few days: Israelis had defiled the very holy Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. That's what news headlines on Saturday morning repeated.

Let me continue, for the moment, with the argument that the attacks were in response to damaging a holy site. That prompts two questions: 1) You expect me to believe that? An attack of this magnitude clearly was months in the planning. There's no way it was cooked up in two days in response. 2) How was the holy site defiled? A bit of digging beneath the headlines on Saturday morning revealed this ruse for what it is. The defilement was that a few Israelis prayed in the temple. Obviously they were being provocative by doing that but all they did was pray. Though that's obviously not the true cause of Hamas's acts of war on Israel, just think about whether any reasonable person would want to support the side that presents as its justification for war, "Someone prayed to the wrong god, so we killed over 100 900 people and took hostages."

Now, anyone who wasn't proverbially born yesterday, or at least anyone who can grasp that history goes back more than about a week, will spot that Hamas's attack occurred on nearly the 50th anniversary (50 years plus 1 day) of the Yom Kippur War. Likely that's what Hamas was aligning the timing of its attack to.

As for why now, one could look merely at the worsening Israeli-Palestine situation over the past several years and assume things simply came to a head. The increasingly hardline political rule in Israel under PM Netanyahu has made things tough for Palestinians. But there are also significant things afoot outside the borders of Israel and Palestine that affect the situation.

In recent years some Arab countries have normalized political (and economic) relations with Israel. Following the Abraham Accords in 2020-2021, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, and Sudan normalized ties with Israel. Lately Saudi Arabia has been moving to do the same. If the Middle Eastern economic powerhouse— and custodian of several of Islam's holiest sites— Saudi Arabia were to officially eschew "Death to Israel" as its foreign policy, it would remove a lot of fuel from the fire of supporting Palestinian militants. It could even start a domino effect that brings many other Arab nations toward peace with Israel. The smart money is on Hamas attacking now to derail these moves toward peace.

Edited to add:This geopolitical view also explains Iran's alleged involvement. Hamas's multi-pronged attack indicates a near certainty of external funding and organizational support. Iran has long been involved in propping up Hamas, along with other anti-Israel/anti-secular-rule terror groups. Iran also benefits from derailing rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Israel. Iran's economy is failing due to a combination of its own corruption and the weight of US sanctions. It would be further left behind if its rival, Saudi Arabia, were to see an economic boost from trading with Israel.

Update 2: Casualty counts from Hamas's initial attack increased in the following days. It's not assessed that their initial attack killed over 900 Israelis, many of them civilians. Hamas deliberately targeted civilians at parties and homes, busting through doors and slaughtering everyone inside. Over 100 hostages were taken, many of them also civilians.

Saturday we headed north toward San Francisco to visit some friends in Pacifica. Afterwards, instead of driving back home, we continued north through San Francisco on 19th Ave. across the Golden Gate Bridge. We'd planned to make a little weekend out of it, staying north of the bridge in Marin County for the night so we could hike a bunch of waterfalls in the area on Sunday. That plan left Saturday late afternoon open... and we filled it with a visit to Hawk Hill.

"Hawk Hill?" you might ask. "What's that?"

You may not know the name but I'm pretty sure you've seen it... or rather you've seen the view from atop it.



It's a classic vista of San Francisco and the Golden Gate. In the distance you can also see Alcatraz, Angel Island, Treasure Island, the Bay Bridge, and Oakland.

If you're wondering why the name Hawk Hill, it's because it's a great place for seeing migrating birds in Autumn. We've been there a bunch of times in the past for hawk-spotting. They even have ranger presentations about hawk on the weekend. Those "hawk talks" are always fun because a ranger shows a live bird they've temporarily captured for tagging.

Anyway, there were no birds on this slight brisk spring day, unless you count crows, but there were other things that Hawk Hill is known for.



Before it was called Hawk Hill it had some really stupid, dull government name like Hill 789. But it was an important hill because of its view out across the Golden Gate, and important navy port for Spain, then Mexico, then the United States. Starting with the Gold Rush after 1849 San Francisco also became a huge commercial port. In WWII it was the primary port on the West Coast for shipping men and materiel across the Pacific.

To defend the area against the naval attack the US government built a number of fortifications into Hawk Hill and other hills around the mouth of the Golden Gate. The picture above shows the remains of a large cannon battlement. The cannon was placed on a huge swivel in that round depression at the front of that concrete bunker. The concrete surrounds protected it from attack by aerial bombardment. Behind the gun area you can see a corridor going all the way through the top of the mountain. That aided soldiers moving between positions. Chambers to either side of the corridor, buried beneath meters of natural rock, stored ammunition.

The guns in these fortifications were never fired in battle. They were decommissioned some time after WWII.



Hawk Hill isn't just a hill but part of a mountain ridge. A road winds along the face of it with views at every turn. Lower down on the hill there's another area with WWII era fortifications. I didn't really take any pictures of the military remnants on this visit. They're in decrepit shape and covered with graffiti anyway. But here's another great vista of the Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco! And BTW there is a WWII battlement in the pic.... Notice that concrete platform at the lower left. I believe it's the base for a WWII anti-aircraft gun.

Last week I finished watching The Pacific with episode 10, "Home". As episode 9 ended with soldiers on Okinawa hearing about an atomic bomb dropped on Japan, the combat is all over. This episode traces the stories of the viewpoint characters as they return home.

Eugene Sledge, Bob Leckie, and some of their immediate cohort don't return home until months after the conclusion of the war. The series doesn't address why this happened, just that it was. A viewer who didn't know otherwise may think it was just because it took months to demobilize and transport some of the men home. I know otherwise from family stories about my Great-uncle John, who served in the Pacific and fought in some of those horribly brutal battles.

"...Plus 6 Months"

Soldiers like John arrived home 6 months later not because, oops! their ship across the Pacific got lost and had to stop for directions or somesuch. The military held some of the soldiers on bases for a few months before allowing them to return home. In the months-long battles in places like Okinawa, Iwo Jima, and Peleliu the soldiers lived like savage animals. The base duty was for reintegration. They'd get re-accustomed to getting showers and hot meals, putting on clean clothes every day, not jumping out of bed and grabbing their rifle whenever something went bump in the middle of the night, etc.

Curiously the show addressed the legal basis on which this reintegration assignment rested with mentioning the reassignment itself. When soldiers enlisted or were drafted their term of service was "The war plus 6 months." Presumably that "plus 6 months" bit was added in case new hostilities flared up after the end of the war or military resources were required for rebuilding.

It was First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt's idea, my grandma (John's sister) and my dad told me, to use the "plus 6 months" term to help transition soldiers who saw the worst back to civil society. My family also tells me that John hated it. He just wanted to be back with his mama sooner. 😅 Friends of mine I've shared this story with who are family of soldiers who served in Iraq and Afghanistan told me they wished such a thing was done for their loved ones.

But back to the show and its story....

Some Swing Quickly into Post-War Life...

Sledge and Leckie are among those who arrive home later than most other soldiers. Leckie is a character I thought might struggle with returning to civilian life. Instead he walks back into the newspaper office where he used to work and demands his old job back, plus a raise. He makes the case with such clarity and confidence the editor agrees.

Leckie does mope a bit when he sees that his sweetheart, the across-the-street neighbor Vera who barely ever gave him the time of day that he wrote lots of letters to while fighting the war, is dating another soldier already. "He's an officer!" Leckie's mom her oh-so-helpfully points out. "And look at the size of his car!"

Leckie takes charge in that situation, too, going across the street to ask her on a date. Vera's mom is just as standoffish as Vera. "And whom shall I say is here?" she asks. "I'm Bob Leckie, the kid who's lived across the street from you for 20 years."

Leckie stands undaunted by her frosty reception. He's also undaunted by the arrival of the other soldier, the officer, who already has a date with Vera that evening. The officer tells Leckie to get lost. Instead Leckie is like, "How about tomorrow night, Vera?" The officer, a young 2nd lieutenant commissioned only after the end of the war, throws a snit fit, insults Vera, and leaves. Leckie takes her out for dinner. Crawl text at the end of the episode tells us they married and lived happily for many years.

...Some Struggle to Get On with Life

Eugene Sledge returns home to Mobile, AL to find his best friend, Sydney Phillips, already enthusiastically adjusted to post-war life. Sydney, who was discharged quickly is already engaged. To Sledge's amazement it's to a woman all the young men in town had considered the most eligible bachelorette.

Sledge, meanwhile, struggles to find his direction. He's not interested in the young adults' party scene, even though it's plenty active with all the young men home from war and the women eager to be courted again. Sydney encourages Sledge to put on his uniform and meet people, telling him his combat experience will make him more attractive in the dating scene than those who "flew a desk." But Sledge doesn't want to wear his uniform ever again or talk about it. He wears a nice suit and tie instead. And when people ask him about his service he says clumsy, off-putting things. The reason he doesn't want to talk about it is it hurts.

Sledge suffers even at home. His family has money and a nice house, his father being a doctor. So he's not under pressure to get a job to support himself. ...Which is good, because he suffers from things like night terrors. In one scene he's tossing in bed screaming while still asleep. His father, the doctor, sits quietly outside his door.

In another scene, Sledge is lounging under a tree in the yard when his mother comes out and criticizes him for being an idler. Sledge gives her a blank stare. His dad admonishes her to go easy on him. The reason for this gender role reversal, nurturing dad and get-off-your-lazy-ass mom, is hinted at in a scene several episodes earlier. Sledge explained to his squad mates that his dad is a doctor who treated soldiers returning from WWI. He saw the horrors of war and how they stuck with young men. That also casts a different light on his efforts to stop Eugene from enlisting in the first episode.

Sledge is the character who most makes me think of my great-uncle John. John never wanted to talk about the war or his service, never wore his uniform again even in situations where it would've been advantageous to, and took a while to find his direction after the war. Eventually John took a job with a big insurance company whose headquarters were in the nearby city. He worked there until the day he retired. Sledge, the series tells us, went to college, earned a Ph.D. in microbiology, and spent his career teaching. Oh, and Sydney Phillips earned an M.D. and worked as a doctor in the community.