Work took me behind the lines (I'm not a seaman. That's what comes out your dick. I'm a fuckin' SAILOR!)
Anyway, sometimes catching a ship means sketchy areas.

So the cab dropped me off and I was shuffling up a sketchy street headed to a gate I had the sedret code to and a couple of cops were standing outside their cruisers talking. I passed by and being in a sketchy area they took notice. So did I.

"Hey! Don't you two bums go off getting a job hanging sheetrock. Stick around. We need you."

They didn't know how to take that one. "When you have to deal with some 6'8 flipped out naked gorilla covered with shit whacked out on PCP swinging a Samurai sword and some 100 pound social worker comes by and says, "I got this"...and is successful is the time to quit and I don't see that one coming too damned soon."

Most likely because they are probably abused fairly often it took them a few seconds but when what I said sunk in I could have knocked the pair of then over with a feather. As I walked off the two stunned, aide eyed officers with dropped jaws said, "Thank you for your support." It was like they didn't know what to say.

As they saw the CBI blood chit on the back of my disreputable flight jacket one of them recovered enough to say, "Cool jacket!"

Anyway I walked the 50 yards to the gate, opened it and stumped off to the boat.

I was wondering if support for LEOs is that rare or is it a Frisco thing? Should I put on a mask because I'm the Lone Ranger?

Don't none of you bums go nowhere. Stick around. We need you.

Rare. I had a guy pay for my burrito the other day and I wanted to hug him.

Pics of jacket!

technically Oakland is not part of San Fran

It's just a well worn, beat up A2 jacket with the Flying Tiger blood chit on the back. On the front there's a Pratt & Whitney high wing eagle patch, my nametag and the patch of a now defunct Alaska bush outfit.

Of course, my wife hates it.

Now that I work on the Left Coast for a while it's drawn a quite a few comments from the large Chinese population. About 3 weeks when out shopping I heard a Chinese voice behind me whisper "Him Frying Tiger!"

Actually at SeaTac one time I had time to kill and someone from the Clare Channault museum gave me a free pass and a tiny, ancient Chinese woman told me about being a toddler on an AVG base where her parents worked. It got kinda dusty when she told me about those big, strong Americans making sure she got enough to eat.  

The bit about the elderly Chinese lady is extra awesome.

Very cool.

It was.

She said that she never found out how her family got to the States. One night she was rousted with her parents, taken somewhere and put on a planne full of 'important looking poeple' and flown to the states. When they arrived they were put in a small apartment for a while and her father was given a job he started a few days after they arrived and she was sent to school.

Talk about culture shock!

To this day she has no idea whatsoever what happened but she thinks those pilots and mechanics had something to do with it. It WAS an incredible story.

If I had to venture any kind of a guess I'd say that letter got to one of the guys that had contacts in high places...or got passed onto one. ETA smells of State Department.

I am very fortunate to work in a city that loves its LE.  

We are also the reddest of the red in TX!