" one day the world will know my name "

Roswell 1984


It all began back in the early 1980's when I was stationed at the U.S. Army White Sands Missile Range; less than an hours drive from Roswell, New Mexico - where the alleged UFO incident happened circa 1947. I'd always assumed that the huge debris field there had been caused by a crashed jet aircraft being developed at what was then White Sands Proving Ground. The Germans had built experimental jets toward the end of World War II but couldn't fly them for lack of enough special jet fuel. After the war the U.S. wanted a heads up on the Russians, and picked up where the Germans left off. As events unfolded at White Sands, I started having second thoughts - about that Roswell crash being a jet aircraft.

A simple disciplinary action that turned into a MAJOR fiasco is what tipped me off. I ratted on a couple of senior enlisted for using drugs while on duty at the weather station - heck, the NASA Shuttle Challenger exploded (a year later) from a frozen fuel line. If they'd had the right weather forecast at Cape Kennedy, it never would have happened. White Sands is an alternate landing site for the Shuttle, and weather observing is a critical job!

Be that as it may, the accused found me out, and threatened my life and property. My superiors should have had me transferred immediately, as required by the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Instead, they kept me there at White Sands. I suffered greatly for the next six weeks, until my U.S. Congressman managed what they called an "Eyes Only" transfer. In the interim, I had a car set on fire, a motorcycle totaled (with me on it) and sundry other transgressions. It was a little war going on out there in the desert. . .The only problem is that these hostilities were NOT done by any of the accused. I know that now for a fact.

In the end, all the drug tests on the accused came back positive, I was given the Army's highest peacetime award, the Army Commendation Medal, and was assigned to a new job at a new installation, Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas. I was not a happy soldier, however; because of the harassment I had suffered and the dozens of laws my superiors had ignored as they tried to destroy me. In their minds, I was the wrongdoer; and they did everything in their power to ruin me.

I complained to the proper authorities at Fort Sam Houston, and then it REALLY hit the fan. The harassment became extreme and protracted. It was so bad I was nostalgic for the lightweights at White Sands. Evidently the Army was determined to keep word of rampant drug abuse at their premier research facility from leaking out. They broke every rule in the book to silence me - and more. Now they were just not covering up the drug abuse, but the retribution by Command Authority on an enlisted whistle blower. I fought every step of the way, and kept careful, meticulous records. Chapter Four of the novel contains verbatim testimony from my Medical Discharge hearing.

You just don't do that to a fellow who'd been near the top of his class at the U.S. Naval Academy, and who'd left because he was bored with the academics and disappointed in the level of discipline. The last straw was recently, when my U.S. Congressman told me that only a formal Act of Congress would force the Army to reopen my case, which I have appealed repeatedly over the last fifteen years as a wrongful discharge.

The bottom line is this: there's something secret at White Sands; real, Real, REAL secret. A smart fellow like me with scruples is the worse possible security threat at a place like that. So they beat me senseless, screwed me to the wall; and figured that was the end of it.

They figured wrong.