My Brush with the No Spin Zone Tonight

Appearing on FNC's The O'Reilly Factor tonight was author Debra Dickerson, providing her views on the NAACP's drive for slavery reparations...that is, what views she could squeeze in edgewise past Bill's bloviating. Her views seemed to teeter from side to side, though I think she tended to side with Bill that reparations shouldn't come out of the taxpayers' hide.

Back before all the books she wrote, before her graduation from Harvard Law, before she was senior editor and contributing editor to US News and World Report, before she was a USAF intelligence officer...back in the early 80s, she was a staff sergeant just like me* in the same USAF enlisted career field at Osan Air Base, South Korea. I didn't know her well, but I knew "D.J." was a kick-ass crypto-analyst and I joined her "brown bean" run, the club-hopping celebration of a member's final night in Korea. My flight was on break at the time and gravitated towards what we thought would be a killer party. Oh. Yeah. I was just grooving to the rock and roll and trying to ignore the bargirls when D.J. dragged me onto the dance floor--I think this was the first time in my life I actually tried to dance, other than slow-dance-coppa-feel songs back when I was irresistible to Korean girls. The experience didn't convert me to a Disco Danny, but gave me a sliver of confidence to work with later in my life.

*Now that I think about it, I might have been a buck sergeant at the time.