I see the Facebook page NZSwim has published a photograph and quote from talented New Zealand swimmer, Paige Schendelaar-Kemp. Paige is clearly enjoying her time at Florida State University. This is what she says.

“Being a Florida State Seminole is a blessing I carry with me every day. I am a Seminole. I live and breathe it through my veins. Why? Because being a Seminole is not just Monday to Friday, it’s a way of life when you become a Seminole. You join a family of incredibly committed, dedicated, driven and loyal athletes.  It’s not just about who’s standing next to you but it’s about those who came before you and those who are to come.  We strive to be the best we can be and uphold the Garnet and Gold.  This year is our year.  Go Noles!!”

I don’t know Paige but I can understand her feelings. You see, I happen to know the guy who recruited her and is now the Assistant Coach for the Florida State team. His name is Oswaldo Quevedo. But we all called him Ozzie. He was a swimmer in my Florida swim team. He specialized in butterfly and, before we met, he swam for Venezuela in the Sydney Olympic Games.

He was also a huge talent. In the time he spent swimming for my Florida Club he broke two Master’s World Records in the 50 and 100 butterfly. He was swimming in the 30 to 34 year age group. Although I can’t remember the world record times exactly, they were 54 something for the 100 metres and 24 something in the 50 metres.

But better than all that you couldn’t find a nicer guy. A huge man at 6 foot 5 inches, he was always happy, always smiling. We had some great times together. Who would imagine a 30 year old Olympian and world record holder missing the final of his main event at the Florida State Championships because he was having trouble fitting into his tight swim suit. Ozzie did that but clearly thought it was hugely funny.

Below is a photograph taken at the same swim meet. Our club 4×100 relay team had just won the long course Florida State Championships. That was pretty special. We were not one of the big Miami or Ft. Lauderdale Clubs. And because of that, winning the blue ribbon relay was a great moment.

In the photograph Ozzie is on the far left, now complete with the tight swim suit. Skuba is next to him. He was a 50 second 100 metre freestyler and Florida Champion. Then there is Andrew who was Florida State High School 100 yards champion and Doug on the far right. Hidden in behind, in the straw hat, is a national 1500 metre champion, track athlete Alison. Her job was to make sure this crew didn’t miss any more events.

The four of them were huge fun to coach. Between them, I suspect they taught the coach more than he taught them. And not only about swimming. Ozzie managed to change another prejudice of mine. Until I got to know Ozzie I confidently held all the stereotype views on the Miss Universe contest. You know what I mean – nothing but a cattle market, all beauty and no brains, exploitation, all that stuff. But then Ozzie introduced me to his wife, Irene. She was certainly good looking but was also bright, well educated, interesting and funny. After a month or so I discovered she had also been the runner-up in the Venezuela Miss Universe contest. It was time for me to change my mind. Never judge a book by its cover.

And so I can understand the commitment Paige has to her school program. Her Assistant Coach is one of the best. He is one of the gentlemen of the sport. And, believe me, he could swim a bit as well. Paige, enjoy your stay at Florida. I’m sure you will. You made a good choice when you signed to become a Seminole.

By David

In my last Swimwatch story I told you about Julie Reiser; an American who gives the place a bad name. But, I forgot to mention an episode that said much about Julie Reiser. During the period when she was in full flight, determined to see me leave the Aqua Crest Club, she went into the pool office to tell the pool staff about their despicable coach. For some time she relayed the purity of her American lineage and pompously revealed how she was a proud member of, what I think was called, the “Daughters of the American Revolution”. We should not, she told the Pool Manager, have foreigners teaching our children to swim. Sadly Julie was not aware that the Pool Manager was born in Jamaica and was as much a British Commonwealth foreigner as I was. As soon as Julie left the pool I was told about her pure and virile racism.

People like Julie have given the United States a terrible name around the world. It is an interesting fact that only 20% of Americans have a passport. In New Zealand the figure is 75%. 80% of Americans have no interest in how the rest of the world lives; no care or knowledge of the world they so easily invade. I hoped President Obama would change the image of the “ugly American”. That was his promise. Unfortunately, recent events suggest the “ugly American” has changed him.

Of course in a country of 318 million there has to be some special people. And that is as true of the United States as anywhere in the world. Take a lawyer friend who swam in the Aqua Crest master’s program. Intelligent, probably to a Mensa level, fun, cosmopolitan, generous, kind – in every respect an interesting and decent person. Alison and I went to his place each year to watch the Super Bowl, an occasion that was as much fun as the game.

Two other members of my Florida adult fitness program were partners Suzanne and Stewart. They were fine people. People who did their county proud; far more than the F-111, aircraft carriers and right to carry arms so valued by many in the United States of America. Sadly, they have both died in the three years since I left Florida. But while we were in Florida they made Alison and I feel welcome and at home; frequently inviting us to dinner or lunch at their exclusive Florida Sailfish Club.

Both were fascinating people. Suzanne was born into a world of privilege and money. Whereas you and I might think mowing the lawns or drying the dishes were normal childhood chores, Suzanne’s teenage task was to look after the polo ponies. Her first husband was a lawyer who defended many mafia family members. His work was sufficiently valued that the family gave him a Caribbean island complete with house and landing wharf. Suzanne survived an airplane crash by swimming about a kilometre to the nearest Nantucket Island beach. She came to New Zealand for a couple of years, living with her daughter in Dunedin.

But the person whose background remained a mystery was Suzanne’s partner the quietly spoken, gentle man Stewart. Only this week have I discovered the fascinating company we enjoyed. Here is his obituary published in the Palm Beach Post. Stop, pause and reflect for a minute on the contrast between the life of this American and the classless chaos of Julie Reiser’s existence. As Sir John Walker once said to me, “Some people have class, others only have arse.” I’ll leave you to work out which was which.

The Palm Beach Post – Obituaries

James Stewart Cottman World War II Veteran James Stewart Cottman, Jr. former Baltimorean of Delray Beach, Florida Deceased July 8, 2013. Buried at Arlington National Cemetery December 9, 2013. Born January 18, 1925 son of the late James Stewart Cottman and Edith Russo Cottman. A 1941 graduate of Boy’s Latin School and 1948 graduate of Johns Hopkins University.

Volunteered for army duty in 1943 at age 18 and had a distinguished combat infantryman battlefield record in the African, Italian, French and German campaigns decorated with the Purple Heart for bullet wounds from a German sniper near Grosseto, Italy; two Bronze Stars for bravery and other unit citations and honors for which he was humble his whole life. He served 20 months on front line combat as a staff sergeant infantry squad leader in the 36th Texas infantry division.

He studied for his master’s degree at Columbia University’s Graduate Studies Department of Public Law and Government. He taught for one year at Park School before entering the State Department where he distinguished himself in a thirty year career as a Foreign Service Officer. He studied at the American University in Beirut and was initially a Middle East correspondent before involvement in United Nations negotiations assisting Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and President Eisenhower in the early 1950’s. He served as Vice Counsel and Second Secretary in the embassy in Bangkok, Thailand for four years and was well versed in Asian politics from his participation in the formation of SEATO.

Another assignment was served in the embassy in Bordeaux, France where he met and married a famous decorated World War II French Underground Fighter, the Countessa Marie Antoinette Fleurieu. He served in the embassy in Geneva, Switzerland where his work focused on NATO member associations and projects. He was fluent in French and German and was well appreciated for his knowledge and skill in exercising the proper protocol in foreign relations. His family loved him for his great sense of honor, his expressions on the rules of the game of life, his superior intellect and his limitless capacity to tell amusing stories and recite poetry. He was a member of the Colonial Warriors, Florida Chapter; a member of Alpha Delta Phi at Hopkins; a second lieutenant in the Maryland National Guard; baptized in both the Catholic Church and the Episcopal Church. He is survived by his brother Brooke Powell Cottman of Cecil County, MD, three nieces Cindy Cottman, Susan Brooke Cottman, Virginia Powell Cottman.

Rest in peace Suzanne and Stewart. Thank you for your warmth, your class, your friendship and your hospitality during eight years in the United States of America.  

By David, with a lot of quotations from Gawker.

We’ll let you know which bits we added at the end.

You’ve probably never heard of Marty Martin. He spent most of his life as an anonymous CIA operative. But he very recently came out of the closet as the man George Bush put in charge of finding Osama bin Laden in the aftermath of 9/11, and guess what? It turns out the man Bush put in charge of finding bin Laden is an extremely shady and allegedly corrupt war profiteer. Who would have thought?

Martin, of course, never succeeded in catching bin Laden. He ran the CIA’s bin Laden unit from 2002 to 2004, a fact that we now know only because he emerged to grab some credit for bin Laden’s death and celebrate the agency’s discontinued torture program: “We got beat up for it, but those efforts led to this great day,” he told the Associated Press three weeks ago. Prior to that, he was just a nondescript former agency official who went into the security consulting business after retiring. The closest hint to just how key an official he was came from references to a “Marty M.”—described as a sort of Jack Bauer of the bayou—in former CIA director George Tenet’s memoir.

Now that we know who Martin really is, we can get a sense of what kind of guy George Bush turned to for arguably the most crucial job in the war on terror.

1. The Kind of Guy Who Bilks Taxpayers for His Own Enrichment

In 2007, after leaving the CIA, Martin joined International Oil Trading Company, a Florida company that delivered fuel to U.S. forces in the Middle East. In 2008, congressional investigators accused it of ripping off the Pentagon to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. This year, the Pentagon’s own audit found that the company overcharged the government by as much as $204 million on a series of massive Iraq war fuel contracts.

2. The Kind of Guy Who Bribes Foreign Officials

According to a Florida lawsuit against International Oil’s owner Harry Sargeant III, Martin paid a $9 million bribe to the head of the Jordanian intelligence service back in 2007 to secure his company’s exclusive rights to ship fuel across Jordan to U.S bases in Iraq. (That allegation comes from the Jordanian king’s brother-in-law, Mohammad al-Saleh, who is suing Sargeant for purportedly screwing him out of a $100 million stake in the company.)

3. The Kind of Guy Who Helps Launder Illegal Political Contributions

In 2008, the Washington Post reported that Sargeant, a billionaire, raised funds for John McCain’s presidential campaign with help from an unnamed “former head of the bin Laden unit” who worked for him. The men reportedly skirted campaign finance laws by funnelling the money through Arab-American “straw donors.” McCain quickly returned $50,000 of Sargeant’s lucre. The Post never named the ex-chief of the CIA bin Laden unit involved in the fundraising, but unless two former heads of the bin Laden unit were working for Sargeant at the time, that man was Marty Martin.

4. The Kind of Guy Who Gets Totally Psyched When People Die In a War He Profits From

In a court filing last week, attorneys for al-Saleh quoted from an e-mail that Martin wrote to Sargeant in 2008 in which he appeared to gloat over the escalation of violence in Iraq:

“Fyi, word of a ‘re-surge’ is floating around amidst shit hitting the fan in Iraq today. ☺”

The “shit hitting the fan” was the Battle of Basra, the Iraqi Army’s attempt in March 2008 to finally roll up militias loyal to Moqtada al Sadr. It was widely seen as a debacle and victory for al-Sadr, and many feared the conflict threatened to reignite the civil war. That month, 40 Americans died in Iraq. ☺!

5. The Kind of Guy Who Has a Daughter Who Swam In My Last Swim Club and Whose Wife Was the Club Secretary

Believe it or not that’s right. I did wonder why he spoke fluent Arabic on the phone while other parents watched their Bronze Squad offspring attempt the 25 metres butterfly. What did he do to afford a $2.6 million house and an international business jet? At a swim meet in Jupiter he brought me up to date on several ways of killing a human being without needing a weapon. That too seemed a bit different from other swim team parents. His ex-British diplomat wife, Carla, was very picky about where the swim team’s money was spent. So picky, she once questioned whether I could have used French side roads instead of paying motorway tolls when I took our club’s best swimmers to Mare Nostrum. For the sake of a few Euros, she made a hell of a fuss. Aware of the concern about the growing Euro toll booth bill, paid to get swimmers from Canet, France, to the tour’s last stop in Monaco, the swimmers paid several of the toll booths themselves. Still, when they got home, Carla didn’t care. The expenditure from the club was still unacceptable.

It seems she may have a several million times bigger financial problem that is about to see her husband return to the care of the US Government. Karma – it’s a wonderful concept.

Anyway, that’s Marty Martin, the guy George Bush put in charge of the bin Laden hunt. Glad it worked out for him.

Harry Sargeant’s lawyers couldn’t be reached for comment on this story. The CIA declined to comment. And Marty Martin’s bin Laden-hunting predecessor, Michael Scheuer –- who served for two years as a special adviser to Martin’s unit –- claims to have never heard of Marty Martin (which we can only presume is a CIA first-rule-of-Fight-Club omerta thing). Reached on his phone, Martin said: “No no, man. I don’t want to talk to you, man,” and hung up before we had a chance to ask a question.

Swimwatch thank the American political blog GAWKER for this story – all the bits that is, except the paragraph about Marty and his wife being parents of a swimmer on our Florida swim team. Again, if you want to read the original, you can find it here http://gawker.com/5803556/ .

Somewhat associated with this story – our apartment in Florida was in a complex called the Delray Racquet Club. One of the more infamous residents of an apartment in the floor just above our unit was Mohammed Atta. On September 11 2001 at 8.46am he flew American Airlines Flight 11 into the North Tower of the World Trade Centre.

Just… wow.