I wonder what ever happened to them…..

We had a great time!

It is beyond belief that I forgot about Dellums and the damage he did (and continues to do) to the Bay Area — Oakland in particular these days. My mind must be fading faster than I thought.

Why a guy who came from a family of labor organizers would become a Marine has always puzzled me. Why he became a self-described Socialist does not. I suppose the Socialists embrace the sorry excuse for a legislator, and I trust the Marines have struck his name from their roles. And he is now the mayor of Oakland — what were they thinking?

I recall many trips to Oak Knoll Navy Hospital as a child. One of my uncles had a long Navy career (pre-WW I to post-WW II), and for reasons I can no longer recall, he spent a few stints at Oak Knoll around the time of the Korean War (probably heart attacks or strokes in post retirement). We kids were sent to the hospital’s theater while the adults did whatever adults did, and I have very fixed memories of all the sailors in blue PJs and bath robes with arms/legs in casts or missing arms/legs. I always presumed they were sailors because it was a Navy hospital, but I suppose now that I think about it they could have been from any service.

How much better off the entire Bay Area would have been had the military facilities you listed remained. Good paying jobs filled with well-educated and well-trained people. Instead, the political opportunists you mention hastened the base closures, and look what’s left. They, however, have done well for themselves. Their constituents? Not so well.

To be fair to Feinstein, I have mixed feelings about her and have probably voted for her about half the time (depending how incompetent her Republican opponent strikes me). On the other hand, I never have and never will vote for Boxer. Wasn’t Feinstein San Francisco’s mayor back around the BRAC time? Seemed that on balance she did a pretty good job of that — at least as much as anyone could with that city.

On a happier note, I trust that you and your pals had a pleasant afternoon/evening at Zacolos yesterday.

I recall the headlines when fellow Californian Everett Alvarez, Jr. (from Alameda if my memory serves) was shot down and captured and how glad I was when he was released. It felt like I knew him and that a friend was finally coming home.

Most people that we elected to state and federal legislatures from this state apparently did not share that feeling, nor did they share a respect for the military.

At the federal level, the California congressional delegation was so anti-military that it offered no support to defend any of the military installations in the state during the early BRAC sessions and did not care that Fort Ord, Mather/McClellan AFBs, and various Long Beach Navy operations landed on the chopping block. The financial impact on Monterey, Sacramento, and Long Beach was devastating — and they were shocked. I can no longer recall the numbers, but those of us who owned real estate in those areas (particularly Sacramento and Long Beach) had an early opportunity to enjoy the real estate bubble bursting as well-paying jobs disappeared by the thousands.

California had an early jump on legislative incompetence, and the majority of our voters are working hard to maintain it.

But many of us — especially those with military service — remember our POWs and MIAs and have no intention of forgetting them. It will be a long, up-hill slog, but we will do all we can to get things back on track.

If we could only figure a way to get each of those fine states to take a few of our state legislators along with those businesses, we’d be in better shape.

I suspect their voters are far too smart to fall for that — unlike too many of our voters.