Patriots (eBook)

Wayne Weiss (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2024 | 1. Auflage
248 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
979-8-3509-8344-9 (ISBN)

Infos

Poisonous snakes. Blood-sucking leeches. Enemy troops eager to destroy him. Forced marches through difficult terrain. Chances of getting back to base on any given day: questionable. Reward: getting to do it all over again in a week or so. Question: Why would a peaceable, intellectually curious student join the army to live this kind of life? What forces had moved him to take part in a war? Alex White had asked himself these questions more than once. Over time, he came to understand that he was there due to a sense of duty. He believed that his country, indeed, democracies throughout the world, faced serious threats from Communist expansion; every responsible citizen had an obligation as a patriot to oppose that to the best of their ability. So, he joined the army, serving first in intelligence, gathering information on enemy capabilities. When the opportunity arose, he was able to help break up a foreign spy network. This led to his becoming an Army Ranger and leading Hmong warriors in Southeast Asia to call in air strikes and carry out ambushes aimed at preventing North Vietnam's invasion of South Vietnam. The work was demanding, the enemy unrelenting, the results sometimes questionable. He saw the enemy and his own troops wounded, killed, dismembered. Enemy losses were great, but they never stopped coming. What drove them in their unrelenting effort? This was what Alex had to know, what he continued to ask himself as fought his battles-until he could not. I invite you to join his quest to know why we are willing to risk death itself to meet our objectives

I was born and raised in St. Francois County, MO, the core of Missouri's Old Lead Belt, where much of the world's lead was mined. During my youth, the lead mines were in full operation, and the rock dumps and chat dumps-created from tailings from the milling of galena (lead sulfide)--formed the playgrounds for my childhood friends and me. Wild rabbits and bobwhite quail were abundant in the woods around the town, and with our twelve-gauge shotguns we brought many of them to our dining room tables. A more delicious meal would be hard to find. Though I spent a lot of times roaming the woods, I had a powerful desire to learn, and before completing high school had read most of the school and town library's offerings and was frequenting used books stores in St. Louis, about 65 miles away. At age 13, I discovered science fiction, and soon accumulated a library of Amazing Stories, Fantastic Adventures, and the early works of authors such as Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov and others who are now icons of classic sci-fi. Later, at the University of Washington, Seattle, I designed and taught a course called Prognostics: The Interplay of Science and Science Fiction, which explored the interaction of the two fields. Upon graduation from high school, I was fortunate to receive several scholarships, one of which paid all expenses at the nearby community college. There, a first-rate teacher kindled my interest in international relations. After a year there, I transferred to the University of Missouri, where I majored in Russian and Political Science, with a good dose of hard science courses-physics, biology, astronomy--on the side. My experiences in studying Russian language and acting as an interpreter for a group of Russian exchange students is described in my novel Patriots. Through their faculty contact at the university, the National Security Agency (NSA) came to consider me as a potential officer and sent a recruiter to interview me shortly before I graduated in 1960. Their interest did not result in a job offer quickly enough for my needs, however, so I joined the army a few months after graduation. I was assigned to the Army Security Agency and was trained at Ft. Devens, MA. While there, using procedures I developed on my own, I was able to become certified in Russian, Bulgarian, Ukrainian, and Serbo-Croatian. How I did that is described in Patriots. After training, I was assigned to Turkey. My language skills led to taking part in breaking up a Bulgarian spy ring, facilitating my promotion to Staff Sergeant, and later enabled me to become part of a paramilitary unit leading Montagnard's on recon missions on the Ho Chi Minh Trail in the early years of the Vietnam War. Following army duty, I passed a series of tests that qualified me as a Federal Management Intern and chose to work for the Agency for International Development (AID) which is responsible for the U.S. foreign aid program. Following a series of rotational assignments, I became a project manager for a series of projects in Latin America. The AID positions were the most rewarding I ever held. Later, in jobs with Governmental Affairs Institute and Public Administration Service, I served as Principal Associate and traveled to dozens of countries to act as a consultant and to conduct training programs for project managers. My last job was as Washington, DC representative for Black & Veatch Engineers, a global firm that designs infrastructure projects in water supply, wastewater, and electrical power in the U.S. and abroad. I am grateful to the many people who helped me along the way, helping to transform a green sapling into a seasoned oak instead of a weeping willow. Life is a learning process. I have been happy with the challenges it offers and look forward to continuing to meet them. I thank my wife and family for their love and support, without which, frankly, the words 'Author's Biography' would likely not have seen the light of day. Wayne Weiss January 2023

Textauszug

Chapter 2 — 1960: The Russians are Coming

Early in my senior year, I received a phone message saying that Dean Thompson wanted to see me at his office. One usually received such a summons when he or she had been apprehended in the midst of some mischief, but as I couldn’t recall anything I’d done that was enough fun to get into trouble, I walked from my dorm to his office with no sense of impending problems. I told the receptionist that I had a 4:00 appointment with the Dean, and within seconds after she called him on the intercom, he walked briskly out to the anteroom where I had just sat down and said, “Good afternoon, Alex. Please join me in my office.”

I thought for a moment of the old undergrad rejoinder, “My god, sir, are you coming apart?” But sudden familiarity expressed in a light vein seemed distinctly inappropriate in light of what I had heard about the Dean’s temperament and his brusque manner, so I simply said, “Yes, sir,” and followed him into his office. After a few standard comments about the Mizzou Tigers basketball team, he noted my “interesting curriculum,” in Russian and Political Science and observed that I had received an A in all the Russian Language courses I had taken, as well as in Arabic. “That’s an excellent record,” he said, “and somewhat unusual for a fellow from a small-town school that didn’t offer any foreign languages. What led you to study Russian? Did your family speak it at home, by any chance?”

Somewhere along the line, I developed antennae that probe the air for concealed meanings, and immediately perceived logical extensions one might make in answer to that question. If I said, “Yes,” that might imply that some of my ancestors had come from Russia. I was uncertain to what degree that answer would be acceptable, with the Cold War ramping up as it was. Would he see Russian ancestry as a stigma, and lay the sins of the fathers—whether they existed or not—upon the sons? In any event, the simple truth required nothing more than a straight answer.

“No, sir” I said, “We didn’t speak any foreign languages at home. I don’t think I ever heard Russian spoken until I came to the University.” It was common for people to ask why I was taking Russian, but in fact I had no special reason. It seemed speaking Russian would provide an advantage during the Cold War—and why not try something different? I had not expected to establish proficiency in it so readily, but as I did, it quickly became more attractive, partly for the publicity it brought after the Russians put Sputnik into orbit, but equally for the sake of excelling in a new field that most people thought was difficult. I had a strong interest in international relations, and in 1957 the USSR and U.S. were butting heads daily in their attempts to dominate the course of world events.

Aloud, I said only, “It appeared interesting and challenging.” I told him I had learned several dozen Russian folk songs to speed up the learning process. This had also helped to provide a sense of the flow and cadence of spoken Russian and was an easy way to increase my vocabulary. Many people believe that because Russian is written in the Cyrillic alphabet, with several letters that resemble nothing they have seen previously and letters that looked familiar taking on distinctly different sounds, it makes it much harder to learn the language. I explained that it had taken only a couple of days to use the new alphabet. As to a career, I told him I was considering teaching at the university level or going into the Foreign Service. I had thought in an unfocused way about a career in the diplomatic corps but had little idea what such a career would entail. Foreign Service Officers served abroad in embassies as the eyes and ears of the United States, as Professor Hall was fond of saying, but what did they actually do every day from 9:00 to 5:00 or whatever hours they worked? No one had shed any light on that. In the movies they were usually sipping cocktails at embassy parties. How they managed to pry secrets out of anyone while tossing down martinis or Scotch on the Rocks eluded me.

“Those are both fine career fields,” the Dean said, “but there are also other U.S. government agencies that may interest you. And you could certainly use your Russian language capabilities and other knowledge you have developed about the Soviet Union.”

I wanted to say “Are you referring to the CIA” but he did not specifically mention it, and before I could ask him, he had moved on, as if he had a great deal of ground to cover and could not afford to linger. He was one of those men who are like a coiled spring even when they seem outwardly relaxed. It wouldn’t have greatly surprised me if he had leapt off his chair and began doing push-ups, so intense was his manner.

He asked if I would be interested in learning more about working for the government “while keeping up with what the Russians were doing.” I said I would, as it certainly sounded interesting, but I would like to learn more about the specific activities that would be involved. He nodded his acceptance of this provision and moved ahead to other topics.

For more than a half-hour, he probed the extent of my knowledge and opinions about Soviet politics, space programs, how the U.S. could respond to the challenge the USSR represented in the developing countries, and, by the way, how can we ever know what actions the Russians will take in different parts of the world? Would their advances to those nations undermine our security and cut into U.S. potential markets? Are they building up a following in the United Nations that will affect what the U.S. wants to accomplish there? What did I think were their strengths and weaknesses? How much would it hurt us that the Russians had gotten into space before us?

I answered as well as my knowledge of the topics allowed yet avoided wild speculation. If I didn’t have any idea what the answer to a question was, or lacked facts to support my position, I said so. He didn’t challenge any of my responses, but kept the conversation moving along briskly, so that we scarcely finished one subject before plunging into the next. When he finally seemed satisfied that we had dealt with all the necessary topics, he thanked me for coming to talk with him, and stood up, indicating that our discussion was finished.

“I’d appreciate it if you would keep our discussion confidential for the time being,” he said. “I may be back in touch with you in the future to pursue this further.”

“Right, I won’t discuss it with anyone,” I answered. “It was a pleasure talking with you,” I added, as I left the office, but he was already jotting notes on a form, I assumed to sum up our conversation and evaluate my responses.

The next few months were so full of activity that I gave our discussion little further thought. The University held a model United Nations session, with attendees from the University and delegates selected from high schools all over the state, and I was honored when the organizers asked me to lead the delegation representing Russia. I put together a team of undergraduate and graduate students who had taken courses in Russian language, history, and government, and we held meetings two nights a week to review all the available current information on Soviet activities and policy pronouncements.

Two other students who read Russian and I translated articles from the major Russian newspapers, Pravda and Izvestia, and other students brought summaries and reviews of relevant articles from the Current Digest of the Soviet Press.5 We developed position papers on issues that the USSR might bring up at the U.N., and how they might react to proposals from other nations in the model session. I asked Dr. Tomski, who taught a course in Soviet Government, to act as faculty advisor to review our proposed approach, and he helped us fine-tune it until each of us was satisfied that we could respond fully to the questions and issues that might arise during the model session.

All this preparation paid off in making the session “the finest in the school’s history” according to the report in the Daily Tribune, the town’s major newspaper, published by the School of Journalism. One incident during the session sparked further debate on campus. When the U.S. delegation proposed an assistance package for “neglected minorities” in the Soviet Union, the Russian delegation countered with a proposed technical assistance program to educate and enroll Negroes as voters in Mississippi and Alabama. This brought forth considerable laughter from attendees generally and caused the U.S. delegation, reluctantly, to withdraw its proposal.

But that was not the end of the matter. Some ROTC students became quite upset at my team’s proposal and accused us of trying to publicly embarrass the U.S. by the outrageous nature of our statement, which inferred that U.S. treatment of Negroes was equal to the “dictatorial repression of minorities by the Soviet Union.” One of the U.S....

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 21.11.2024
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte
• ISBN-13: 979-8-3509-8344-9 / 9798350983449