Sex and the High Command (28 page)

IT SERVED US

Here stand the mortal remains of Benjamin Franklin Hansen, Vice Admiral, USN, last survivor of the male epoch, whose skills were instrumental in the rescue of 1,700 girls stranded on the Greenland Ice Cap after the successful completion of Operation Mousetrap.

Antiquarians have pointed out a flaw in the exhibit. On the specimen’s hat, the eagle above the shield looks left. In actual fact, during the admiral’s term of service the eagle looked right. In 1942, two years before the specimen’s birth, the Navy eagle looked left, but it was altered to look to the right. The flaw in an exhibit otherwise regarded as a triumph of taxidermy was not considered significant enough to correct. In heraldry, the left-looking eagle denotes a bastard house.