Synopsis

The year is 2009 and America is on the brink of a second Great Depression.  Looking to avoid economic disaster an unethical think-tank called the Studebaker Institute of Washington, D.C. is advising the newly-elected President of the United States about the urgent need for the country to return to the gold standard. However, the stumbling block is where to find all the gold required to do so and estimated by Studebaker to be 900,000 metric tons.  

In the history of humankind only 130,000 metric tons of gold have been brought to the Earth’s surface. All of it amounts to a cube only 60 feet on each side.  After various meetings with the U.S. Geological Survey, Dr. R. Cinza Brown, the chief economist of the Institute is convinced by the Survey’s eccentric Dr. Benjamin “Pig” Lemkau that despite certain obstacles, the quickest solution is to harvest vast amounts of gold on Mars using high-yield thermonuclear warheads. 

But Archie Jefferson, a photocopier repairman at Studebaker, has accidentally discovered this government top secret project called Operation GERDA – Gold Extraction & Relocation for Defense of America - and involved his army buddy and fellow Vietnam War veteran Sam Noble through a careless act.  Samuel Lee Noble is a Senior Courier with the U.S. State Department soon approaching mandatory retirement age and has always wanted to write a book based on his many worldwide travels but has picked the wrong time and place.  

He sends over to Archie at Studebaker using inter-agency mail some of his first chapters which are then intercepted by Studebaker’s security staff setting off a chain of events that threatens the lives of Sam, Archie, and others in their wider circle.  Now the FBI is secretly investigating the whole affair because Sam, after a lifetime of procrastination, is finally writing about his favorite subjects including legends of lost civilizations, the Holy Grail hoax, Knights Templar, and by strange coincidence he has also picked gold to write about.  

The protagonist in Sam’s book is called Duke Mitchum, a name he simply invents by combining the names of this two all-time favorite actors John “Duke” Wayne and Robert Mitchum.  Sam loves old movies.  Sam and Archie are suspected by Studebaker and the FBI of being anarchists possibly belonging to a domestic terrorist cell with Duke being their clandestine ringleader.  

Sam though has the last laugh when he retires with his mystical Brazilian wife Nellie, part Nambikuára Indian from the Amazon rainforest, to her native village called Campo Dourado where nearby he makes an amazing discovery of his own not far from where Theodore Roosevelt once explored the legendary River of Doubt in 1914.  It was that night of a waxing moon and spectacular meteor shower. 

(This is a work of fiction.  Although some real-world names, organizations, historical settings, and situations are used to enhance the authenticity of the story, any similarities to actual persons, organizations, or situations are coincidental and all portrayals are purely the product of the author’s imagination.  This is the second edition abridged version 2019.  First edition Copyright © 2006.  All rights reserved)

Part 1: Operation GERDA

You may talk o’ gin and beer when you’re quartered safe out ’ere, an’ you’re sent to penny-fights an’ Aldershot it; but when it comes to slaughter you will do your work on water, an’ you’ll lick the bloomin’ boots of ’im that’s got it. Rudyard Kipling/Jim Croce

“You may be seeking to harvest gold on Mars, Dr. Brown but more important than the noble metal for our extra-terrestrial mining plans on Mars is water – human exploitation of Martian gold will require long-term colonization and to do that, water is the elixir of life on that god-forsaken planet.  Without water there can be no long-term colonization, no agriculture for food, no sustainable basis for survival.” 

It was late-summer 2009 and the chief economist from a consulting firm, Washington, D.C.’s Studebaker Institute, was working on a project to help the federal government dig out of a severe recession.  And so Dr. Benjamin “Pig” Lemkau of the United States Geological Survey continued explaining to his esteemed colleagues and invited VIP guest, Dr. R. Cinza Brown, his big-think on finding gold on Mars. 

As far as he was concerned, the place to land to establish initial home-base mining operations was a location already familiar to Earth’s scientists and one that afforded ample solar-power potential for energy, the Terra Meridiani site, used by the Opportunity Lander in 2004, which giddy NASA scientists in Pasadena had once dubbed the “Holy Grail” for studying the rocky Martian surface.  It was near the Martian Equator in an area lined with sedimentary rocks and the mineral hematite which on Earth were created typically only in the presence of water.

 Even though the water may prove salty or otherwise not potable, a well-shaft dug there would produce sufficient liquid to sustain a colony provided adequate desalinization and chemical treatment was employed.  Over time miniature nuclear reactors would provide most energy needs since given the climates propensity for dust storms blotting out the Sun, this form of energy was more reliable. 

Establishment of the home base would allow for eventual migration into the northern hemisphere for future mining operations and construction of even larger gold leaching tanks – Dr. Lemkau ruled out possible southern hemisphere colonization sites for explosive reasons he would later elaborate on.

“It’s very important the mining colony become as quickly self-sufficient as possible and take advantage of whatever materials exist on Mars to that end,” Pig said.  He elaborated by saying that Mars once had a much thicker atmosphere and as it dissipated millions of years earlier, it was absorbed by rocks, soil, and ample quantities of water-ice still present on the planet, so breathable oxygen-laden gas was obtainable with proper extraction techniques and chemical science.

 Extraction of hydrogen, methane, helium, and oxygen from the Martian atmosphere could be stored for energy use by everything from surface rovers, to electrical generators, and for mining operations equipment.  Rovers and mining equipment will have efficient regenerative fuel cells with compact insulated cryogenic storage tanks, and life support systems for miner team traverses of two to three days at a time. 

#

They will also feature, like all life-support systems on Mars, artificially induced electromagnetic shields for radiation protection from deadly cosmic rays.  Equipment will also feature tele-robotic surface driving and extension systems with dexterous robotic manipulators, and ultra-compact deployable photovoltaic arrays.  Argonaut-miners will carry compact chemical analysis instrumentation for judging gold content of Martian ore, including gamma and x-ray spectrometers and image spectrometers linked on-line, with a twenty-minute time lag, to supercomputers at the USGS and NASA.

Interestingly, sustaining life in Earth’s Antarctica human colonies has provided examples of how to cope with the extreme cold of the Martian environment, from using things like chemical toilets to inflatable Lego-like connected Quonset huts called habitats, to wheeled transportation via pressurized rovers – only on Mars propulsion power would come from the Sun and/or hydrogen since internal combustion engine utilization was out of the question there for obvious reasons.

 Since Mars has no electromagnetic protective shield to filter out dangerous ultraviolet rays and cosmic radiation,  besides Quonset habitats, additional safety could be afforded colonists by them initially taking shelter in underground empty lava tubes, caves, or depressions like deep craters until such time that permanent solid structures can be built using local resources. 

New and clean technologies developed for land-vehicular propulsion on Mars may one day be adapted for use on Earth to replace the ancient internal combustion engine propelled by fossil fuels – becoming the “Tang” of tomorrow. 

#

Besides protection from ultraviolet and ionizing radiation, dust storms, and micrometeorites, systems will need to be simulated to allow long-term habitation of Mars so men and women can work with minimum psychological problems – satisfying food with increased carbohydrates and decreased fat, and drink, good lighting, sexual release, rest, recreation, medical attention, and comfort are of primary concern.  A safe artificial living and working environment is possible to create on Mars using survival lessons learned in the Antarctic, and maximum utilization of everything nature provides to the explorers who live on Mars. 

NASA scientists already know that the regolith soil present on Mars will allow astronauts to eventually produce bricks, and the large variety of metals and alloys on Mars, in addition to gold, can be extracted and purified for making construction and transportation equipment – regolith is very high in magnesium and hydrogen content. 

Other soil types, silicates, and minerals will allow for the production of ceramics, glasses, plastics, wires, and solar panels by colonists living on the planet – a total work crew of about two hundred men and women will be on Mars after two years.  Half that number will arrive in year one to begin colony construction and set up gold mining operations, while the other half will arrive by the end of year two.  The entire group will be a mix of construction workers, geologists, medical staff, astronauts, scientists, botanists, IT experts, and engineers, the best of the best.

Ironically, like the construction of King Solomon’s Temple, key to success on the Red Planet will be the work of skilled craftsmen such as bricklayers, stonecutters, and masons – the heirs of Hiram Abiff.  On Earth construction materials have to be mixed with special adhesive binders in order to stay rigid and keep their shape. 

But Martian soil contains another special chemical ingredient – iron oxide or npOx which gives the planet its signature red color - that acts like an innate binder and when compacted with high-pressure hammers into bricks, form blocks stronger than steel-reinforced concrete.  People are going to need a lot of specialized equipment to live on Mars and launching everything from Earth, including building materials, is an economic and logistical impossibility.  We must move as quickly as possible to “live off the land” Pig emphasized.

#

After a slight nudge by Lemkau’s boss and USGS Division Chief Dr. Morris Vine, his underling Dr. Peter Owens spoke up and remarked, “Ben, dagnabbit, aren’t you putting the cart before the horse here?  By that I mean, how do you intend to get there, what are the logistics for putting this all together?  I just don’t see how all this is possible within the ridiculously short time frame of 48 to 60 months we’re talking about here to get everything up and running.”  A wry grin appeared across Vine’s face.

“Actually Pete, I see this as the easiest of the three tasks before us to accomplish – namely getting there, which is what you’re asking.  The other two are setting up housekeeping and survival requirements, which I touched on already; and the actual mining operations, which I’ll get to directly.  Let me answer your question first, however,” Pig replied. 

He then added, “Getting there means getting the total project approved and funded, and to do that we’ll need oodles and oodles of money appropriated by Congress – billions of dollars.  But with the express purpose of the project being the recovery of gold on Mars to pay our own way, that shouldn’t be a problem.” 

And, Cinza thought to himself, the fact that without his project being approved America – with national debt completely out of control and mired in a severe recession - may cease to exist as we know it, hopefully that alone should be more than enough to motivate the President and Congress to act quickly.  Dr. Lemkau then laid out the voyage scenario and itinerary.

“It only took us three days to get to the Moon in 1969, but it’s going to take us at least six months to get to Mars,” he began to explain.  At its closest point Mars is 35 million miles from Earth, but the distance increases to 230 million miles when we are on opposite sides of the Sun.  By comparison, the Moon is only a quarter-million miles away.  The challenges of a Mars expedition stem from the large distances involved and the dangerous environment of deep space. 

A total Mars mission duration depends on both the round trip travel time and the time spent on the planet’s surface, depending as well on the timing of the Earth and Mars alignment vis-à-vis the Sun.  Using conventional Saturn V chemical fuel mixtures of liquid oxygen and kerosene for propulsion means missions will take about 180 days one way, and require long surface stays of about 500 days to allow the planets to realign once again before returning home. 

#

Advanced reusable nuclear propulsion, not a science fiction tale but something which can become viable within a year of round-the-clock research and development like the Manhattan Project, can cut the trip length of time to Mars and back by two-thirds – and allow stays on the surface of more than one third longer than the currently feasible duration.  More flexible surface stays, coupled with a significantly reduced propellant mass means bigger outward-bound payloads and more cargo carrying capacity for inbound trips.

Shorter travel times are desirable to reduce the impact of the deep space wear and tear on crew and mission equipment.  As it is during the space voyage, expected hazards include galactic cosmic radiation and solar flares; the lack of normal gravity; psychological stress from long-term isolation; and equipment degradation. 

The challenge of the Mars trip will require several hundred tons of start-up survival materiel, equipment, and fuel for the expedition, thus requiring heavy-lift launch capability from Earth’s atmosphere – the space station is ruled out since deep space launches from it are still not a viable alternative despite the billions of dollars spent on that taxpayer boondoggle.  The strategy for the first mining expedition will focus on three areas of emphasis: human settlement and encampment construction, exploration and mining preparation, and finally, gold extraction and storage.

Saturn V Moon Rockets are limited to three-stage capacities of 140 metric tons to low Earth orbit.  We will need to use nuclear thermal rockets for heavier lift capacities of 400 metric tons, and nuclear energy will also be used for electric surface power as a back up to solar panels not always reliable due to large dust storms on Mars.  There needs to be at least three simultaneous launches given the cargo needs for men and equipment – including entry vehicles to and from Mars and Earth – on the initial voyage to Mars, with replenishment voyages departing Earth synchronized with increased mining activities. 

With Mars orbital capture and rendezvous with the cargo vehicle completed, crews descend in their piloted landers to the planet’s surface, and ascend back to orbit via landers once again to replenish.  For the trip back to Earth, they transfer to large storage capacity Earth-entry vehicles, bringing back with them processed gold bullion – like the Spanish caravel ships of old. 

Dr. Lemkau concluded his remarks by stating, "There also needs to be launches of orbiting satellites for improved preparation of topographical maps and potential gold excavation sites, and a satellite for high altitude demolition work.  This technology will include advanced imaging detectors, multi-spectral imaging radar, and lidar or light plus radar, for surface and substance characteristics recognition."

#

“Excuse me Dr. Lemkau, but did you just say demolition work?  What the hell does that mean?” Morris Vine asked totally dumbfounded. 

“Hold your water Vine,” Pig responded, “I’ll get to that in a minute.  So Pete, that now leaves us with the mining operations scenario, correct?”  Dr. Owens rather sheepishly nodded in the affirmative and Pig continued.

“An Earth-based deep mining operation to recover gold typically requires thousands of tons of specialized equipment like excavators, haulers, crushers, milling and grinding machines, mine elevators, filtration, chemical leaching tanks, and finally furnaces for smelting gold extract into bullion.  I say here deep mining because although there are ample signs of water cutting into the Martian crust from dried up rifts and river channels, I don’t think there is much chance for placer mining of gold given the millions of years of surface soil erosion and dispersion of dust into the atmosphere.

To my knowledge, none of the soil samples taken by robotic landers has ever produced evidence of gold, even as small as one part in millions of Martian dust particles, so this leads me to conclude that gold exists on Mars just like it was forced on Earth initially – when a heavy and continuous bombardment of meteorites some three billion years ago deposited a veneer of asteroid-laden pulverized gold deep inside the planet’s crust from the tremendous explosive force of impact. 

Either that or gold present in surface dust is so minute in content, much less even than in Earth’s seawater, that our testing is not accurate enough to show positive results or that initial tests were just wrong in the first place.  Based on my detailed analysis, I put the gold content of deep-mined Martian soil to have at least five milligrams of gold per metric ton of ore, if not more. 

#

Smaller than Earth in diameter, the Martian crust is only about twenty miles thick so to get at its gold, we will need to go deep and to do that, it’s not going to be pretty.”  Pig looked around the room expecting a question or two and he was right – another colleague and Vine underling Dr. David Prendergast spoke right up.

“Ben, as you rightly point out, we have absolutely no scientific evidence that there’s gold on Mars, not even in the tiniest quantity based on tests done to date from soil and rock samples collected over the years by NASA.  All we have is your theory.  Without this evidence, how do you justify a gold rush to Mars and expenditure of billions of dollars on this wild goose chase? 

Not to mention how you intend to get that deep into Mars’ crust and mine this long-lost yellow metal you’re talking about.  You said there would be three simultaneous launches lifting off from Earth initially, but their cargoes will be mainly needed for life support and exploration purposes for extended periods. 

Just do the math, there’s no room on these three ships for the thousands of tons of mining equipment you’re talking about, and for sure, getting gold out from deep inside Mars, even if it indeed existed in minute quantities, will far exceed the timeline Dr. Vine indicated for his requirements.  How, then, do you reconcile these technical contradictions and your seriously flawed logic?”

“Actually David, I can’t.  If my suggested approach was conventional, it would take decades to achieve the kind of success needed, so that’s why we need to think outside the box and discard old paradigms.  As a substitution for heavyweight mining equipment being shipped to Mars, I propose the use of high-yield thermonuclear warheads to blast our way deep inside the Martian crust.”  The room grew deathly quiet following Pig’s words, but then the crescendo built, first with nervous physical movements by those present, culminating with Dr. Vine’s hysterical outburst.

“Are you bloody fucking insane!” he hammered at Pig and this from a man who almost never used profanity.” 

“Certifiably, Morris, but ain’t it bloody fucking cool!” was the large man’s boisterous rejoinder.  “We all know the Martian southern hemisphere is a wasteland pockmarked with craters, thousands of them, like someone fired a 12-gauge load of buckshot into a big ball of cheese, repeatedly, but only at the bottom half of the sphere.  The asteroids and meteors that made these craters deposited their gold way down deep, so to get at the ore, I say we blast in using 100-megaton nukes mounted on missiles fired from orbiting space platforms.  We trilaterate our targeted craters from the platforms so we hit them with GPS pinpoint accuracy, using bunker busters developed by the military for the Middle Eastern wars. 

The Pentagon has these B61-11 bombs that don’t detonate until they’re hundreds of feet deep inside the ground, and by specially shaping our explosive charge for mining purposes, we can get blasts which are exponential in force to the initial mega-tonnage yield.  Additionally, the blow-back from such a blast will release trillions of tons of soil and rock high into the sky, via its gigantic mushroom cloud, thanks to Mars’ weak atmosphere, and from there we can harvest ore already mined, crushed, and pulverized, all thanks to the courtesy of Albert Einstein. 

If we need to go deeper, all we do is increase the mega-tonnage – hell, we can go to 1,000 megatons if that’s what it takes.  The beauty of using nukes is that we don’t even have to worry about radiation fallout because Mars is bombarded by radiation all the time from the Sun anyway, and our crews will already be protected by specially designed suits and gear.  Plus the fact that our home base will be thousands of miles away to the north, near the Martian Equator, and not anywhere near the blast sites.  And even better news is that there aren’t any pain in the ass environmentalists to worry about so we can do anything we want.”

#

The other Ph.D.’s of Vine’s Geological Survey team all chimed in at the same time.  “Madness!” Berigarg screamed.  “Potential Armageddon for life on Earth!” was Dr. Prendergast’s contribution.  “Mars could explode!” exclaimed Owens.  Dr. Crampton, rail thin, actually began sobbing and trembling uncontrollably from the stressful commotion which had become too emotionally painful for him to bear any longer. 

Eerily calm and now ashen-faced, as if keeping his composure showed Pig he couldn’t get his goat, Dr. Vine said finally, “Gentlemen, let’s give Dr. Lemkau his say.  Please continue.  I’d like to hear how you, our modern day Midas, intend to convert all this radioactive dust blown 1,000 miles up in space into gold.” 

At first somewhat threatened by Pig’s seemingly intellectual command of the subject, Vine felt that his argument had now completely lost veracity and Dr. Brown could not report any of this conversation to his superiors or run the risk of himself being accused of lunacy.  Once this endless and tortuous meeting was concluded, this fat, pink-skinned, scientifically blasphemous buffoon would be relegated once again to his dark little cubbyhole; and Vine would see to it that his last few years as a public servant at USGS would be a living hell.

“But Dr. Lemkau, this is preposterous!” Prendergast exclaimed and continued to pile on, “Burrowing deep into the Martian crust and setting off these devastatingly powerful weapons may actually cause the planet to crack open, releasing toxic and potentially deadly fumes from gaseous pockets inside the rock.  We know very little about Mars’ interior, much less than we do about Earth’s and we know very little about Earth’s internal physical structure. 

#

Mars may have empty cavities inside its crust thousands of miles wide and many miles deep from former water and ice deposits – should a nuke be detonated in such a vacuum, the accompanying pressure from the cavity’s depth would multiply the explosive force by a factor of many thousands of times, theoretically sufficient to destroy the planet. 

A disintegrated Mars would change the cosmic balance in our solar system, throw it a kilter, and that could mean the end of life on planet Earth.  Besides these potential calamities, you could have coming at Earth millions of radioactively charged meteors, some large enough to completely snuff out life on this planet.  Even unknown deadly Martian bacteria could be unleashed and hurled towards Earth as space rock passengers.  I don’t see the point in this discussion, why continue with this farce?”

“Well I’ll be a blue-nosed gopher,” said Pig still amused by the ruckus he had caused, “thanks for that vote of confidence David.  Since I’m just spitballing here anyway, please let me finish for Dr. Brown’s sake and then all you geniuses can tear me a new asshole, okay?

            What we do is find a dried up riverbed up by our northern base camp, far away from the mine blasting activities in the south, and dam it up on both sides.  It’s a geologic fact that these beds have soil packed very tight, tighter than Tupperware and that’s water tight – an apropos analogy because we’re going to flood these dry reservoirs with millions of gallons of subterranean water to make huge cyanidation tanks out of them.  I’m talking really big here – twenty, thirty, forty miles long and wide. 

            They don’t have to be that deep, though; what we want is a large surface area so the Sun’s cosmic rays can cook the potassium-cyanide soup and leach out the gold from the Martian dirt and rock, which can be done many times faster than on Earth where our atmosphere and heavier gravity slow down the chemical process.”  Pig was on a roll now and didn’t stop to be bothered with questions.

“To get the airborne debris from the nuclear detonations into the holding tanks, we’ll use a sponge-like ‘fishnet’ hundreds of miles in diameter called aerogel, developed for NASA’s Space Probe in 1999 to capture comet dust millions of miles in space.  This aerogel is some strange shit – it’s an extremely light, porous material with ultra-low density made from silica.  You know, sand. 

Explosive debris, even though traveling very fast and very hot, tunnel right into aerogel but can’t get through it and so are captured intact.  These aerogel sticky fishnets can be rounded up by low altitude vertical take-off harvesters and deposited inside the cyanidation tanks, where the acid will dissolve the aerogel and leave the gold-laden ore inside the tanks. 

Think about this phase as being like the old twenty-mule-team Borax guys mining and hauling that mineral from Death Valley to make laundry detergent back in the day.  You remember that television show don’t you Dr. Brown, from the early sixties, the one with the Old Ranger and later Dutch Reagan?” Pig asked.

#

Cinza nodded in the affirmative but had absolutely no idea what the hell Dr. Lemkau was talking about since this was way before his time.  The rest of the guys in the room did, though, since they were all baby boomers and had watched the show on black and white television sets as kids.

“Yeah, I know what you guys are going to ask,” Pig continued, “where do all these nasty chemicals come from, correct?  Well, the answer is right under the astronauts’ feet.  The soft alkalis found in Martian soil have about the same proportion of potassium as that found in Earth’s soil and the same goes for sand and hydrocyanic salts found on Mars for making aerogel and hydrocyanic acid, also called cyanide.  Once the ore is dissolved in the leaching tanks, mercury will be added as a precipitator for gold separation to be followed by the penultimate step of filtration.

 Mercury sulfide will be extracted from the reddish cinnabar mineral found on Mars in abundance, and just like the alchemists of the Middle Ages did, miner-astronauts will superheat the mineral to leave behind liquid quicksilver.  After the filtration process, the gold will appear as a dark brown powder; and during the final process of smelting, impurities will be removed from the gold and the yellow molten liquid will be cast into bars of almost pure gold.  We’ll build our own blast furnaces too, from the bricks we make out of regolith and fire them up using methane and hydrogen extracted from the soil and atmosphere.

Just imagine the scale of gold production if we created hundreds and hundreds of these massive leaching tanks – why Dr. Brown, there’ll be thousands upon thousands of metric tons of gold ready to be transported back to Earth in no time,” Pig squealed.  “And once we suck all the gold out of the Martian crust, we go upward and outward, traveling first through the Asteroid Belt, then to distant planets, and even to the edge of the Oort Cloud 84 billion miles away to harvest gold.  By then, Mars is just one gigantic cyanidation tank anyway and like Abraham did with Isaac, we offer the polluted planet up as a godly sacrifice if that’s what it takes to make our mission successful.”

“Dr. Lemkau, could you please elaborate on that a little more please?  Not sure I follow your rationale after Mars,” Cinza was elated at the amount of gold Pig just mentioned and could barely contain himself.  “And I’m also a little fuzzy on how we’re supposed to transport the very heavy gold metal, assuming there is any, off the Martian surface and back to Earth?  I’m no scientist but if fuel weight going to Mars is such an issue, then how could there be enough chemical fuel left over to get the gold back to Earth, I mean, a couple of cubic feet of the stuff weighs well over a ton?  It may take years or even decades to get the metal back to Earth if we’re talking thousands of tons, right?”

            “Well said Dr. Brown,” Vine cut in immediately, with murmurs of approval from the other learned men not sure anymore how to react to Pig’s ravings.

#

Pig, a little less cocky, just said, “I admit getting the gold back to Earth does pose a problem in the short run, but only the short run since space fuel technology will advance and provide longer flight duration and greater lift capacities.  I can also appreciate your dilemma Dr. Brown, in that we may all be dead in the long run.  I’m still toying around with some ideas, like shooting capsules back from the low gravity field of Mars to impact on Earth – GPS guided of course – in places where we could harvest the gold payloads. 

To prevent incineration upon Earth re-entry, we could employ the same ablative material as heat shields used so long ago on the old Mercury capsules.  But the point is that you would have all the gold you needed just waiting for shipment to Earth, whether you could get it back here quickly or not.  Do you get my point?”

“Okay, and after the gold on Mars has run out and we still need more, theoretically speaking, then what do we do?” Cinza’s heart rate was jumping on Pig’s every word.

“We start harvesting the Asteroid Belt for gold ore, lassoing them like space cowboys, busting them up with nukes if we have to, and capturing the debris using thousands of miles of aerogel sheets for transport back to Mars for processing.  Once we get through the Belt, we will have to establish independent mining operations on outward planets, or their moons, because the trip back to Mars to process the ore will take too long. 

As the outer flight voyages get longer and longer, water will be the main issue and not fuel, so that’s why finalizing NASA’s top secret powdered-water project research is crucial to extended space travel.”  Pig saw Cinza’s quizzical expression and answered his unasked question.

“There are various practical considerations for extended space flight, the most obvious ones being the human need for water and how human beings rust from the inside because of the way oxygen attacks our cells and DNA – this process is the natural process of aging and every living thing on this planet that breathes oxygen begins rusting away internally from the moment they take their first breath.  Outward aging is the most obvious side effect. 

A single lightweight, powdered H2O packet, the size of a Jiffy Pop popcorn foil pan, will use an oxygen-nitrogen chemical catalyst pellet to provide drinking water for nine-man space crews lasting six months, and food derivatives based on the water-packet design will provide a veritable ‘jar of manna’ for astronauts to nourish themselves with, during deep space exploration and mining activities.” 

#

Pig went on to say, “The Asteroid Belt is a giant debris field left over from some long lost planet – the famed Planet-X of lore and legend, the Atlantis of the stars – which was destroyed in a massive collision long ago.  The rocky matter became millions of asteroids captured by the immense gravity field of Jupiter, and it was the giant planet’s gravitational interference from its huge mass that prevented any of these asteroids from getting any larger than 600-miles wide. 

In contrast, the Oort Cloud is a spherical envelope of comets and residues that surrounds our solar system, and was the birthplace of the giant comet that struck the Tunguska region of Siberia in 1908 – and is the home today of an estimated 12 billion comets.  The residue was left over from the formation of the giant outer planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, and when we’re done mining these monsters, the Oort Cloud is the last stop in our solar system.”

Dr. Lemkau continued, “Keep in mind the distances and lengths of time involved in space travel, just within our own solar system.  The Moon was a mere three-day trip; Mars, at ‘only’ 35 million miles, is right next door yet will take six months during the most favorable orbiting path with Earth.  Jupiter’s over ten times as far as Mars and will take five years to get there, and five years to get back; Saturn is seven years one-way and Pluto, ten years. 

Even if we improve exponentially our chemical rocket technology, to get to the edge of the Oort Cloud will take two centuries there and two back to Earth, and I really don’t see a Star Trek scenario of man achieving flight at the speed of light to shorten travel time significantly any time soon.”

“Assuming we can get astronauts to give up a normal family life and sacrifice themselves for space exploration and gold mining the stars, how will they be able physically and psychologically to handle such long voyages?  I mean just going to Pluto and back is a voyage of twenty years.  How will gravity affect muscles, bones, and the aging process?” Cinza queried still trying to keep calm. 

How strange, he thought to himself, that ideas for projects he had pitched to the Studebaker Institute board of directors years ago when he was first hired – human biological engineering, non-petrol powered propulsion, missile technology, man’s impact on the natural environment – were all coming into play here, in this incredible idea being pitched by a life-long bureaucrat buried in the bowels of government.

“Well,” said Pig, “there doesn’t as yet exist any elixir of life so we have to play the cards we’re dealt and improve on pushing out the envelope as we go along.  Using conventional medicines and natural homeopathic herbs, medical doctors have already extended life spans considerably, much to the chagrin of America’s bankrupt Social Security Administration. 

These treatments focus on slowing down the body’s propensity to rust internally, thus adding years of additional life.  It seems like every day, somebody is coming up with another special diet, herb or root from the Amazon rainforest that improves health and helps us ward off a few more years of wear and tear on our bodies.” 

Besides being obese, Pig chain smoked, even though smoking was not permitted in federal buildings, never exercised, and had stratospheric blood pressure – yet both parents had the same metabolism and large size as their son but died well into their eighties.  But his ample girth was not the reason his nickname was Pig, nor was the reason the fact he had red hair and a freakishly pink hue to his skin.  It was because of his frequent use of profanity which he had crafted into an art form.

“Human growth hormones and neurotoxins like botox, short for botulin toxin, an ideal agent for chemical warfare or use by terrorists, are in vogue right now, as are any number of ointments, lotions, and creams used by both men and women to prevent skin aging.  But no amount of herbs, creams, or lotions are going to help on the really long space voyages, I mean life-long voyages for someone leaving Earth as adults knowing they’ll never see this planet again. 

Before we have the ability to travel faster, we may have the need to travel beyond the body’s physical and biological limitations with the slower jet propulsion systems of today.  We need to use the technology we have, and we have today, ethical and religious problems notwithstanding, the ability to clone humans.”

#

As Dr. Lemkau explained it, DNA from all organisms is made up of the same chemical and physical components, and a complete set of DNA is called a genome, containing three billion DNA base pairs in humans.  The ability to generate virtually endless copies of people, called clones, has as its basis recombinant DNA technology and its application to human and medical genetics. 

In layman’s terms, cloning is the method of producing a baby that has the same genes as its parent.  You take an egg and remove its nucleus, which contains the DNA genes, and then you take the DNA from an adult cell and insert it into the egg, either by fusing the adult cell with the enucleated egg or by a sophisticated nuclear transfer. 

You then stimulate the reconstructed egg electronically or chemically and try to make it start to divide and become an embryo.  You use the same process to implant the egg into a surrogate mother that you would use with artificial insemination.  The first cell cloned itself about four billion years ago, maybe on the surface of some gassy bubble somewhere on Earth, from a divine spark.

A broader definition of cloning includes the production of tissues and organs through growing cells or tissues in cultures, along with the actual producing of embryos to be born.  This is done with the use of stem cells – to clone an organ a stem cell must be produced and then used to clone that specific organ.  A common misconception is that the “copies” of organs or whole humans are exact copies of the person or thing being cloned. 

What cloning actually does is to copy DNA genes of the person or organ and creates a duplicate genetically – but that duplicate will not be a Xerox copy.  Scientific expertise and medical know-how aside, the moral problem facing space travelers using cloned body parts or cloning entire “replacement” astronauts from themselves will be difficult to overcome short-term, but perhaps having them in space and far away from Earth will help. 

Back on Earth there could be problems with introducing cloned humans into the overall gene pool, with doomsayers predicting a “royal blood” degradation causing a weakening of mankind’s immune systems and eventual human species extinction. 

#

There could be unknown psychological harm to cloned humans, considering themselves of inferior stock to “normal” humans.  Religious protestations could be daunting, charging government interference in the natural order of the universe, with the Christian fundamentalists using their “divine spark” argument in which God alone can create life and not mortal men. 

Other religions could claim that their God has commanded that the sacred powers of procreation are to be employed only between man and woman, lawfully wedded as husband and wife, affirming the sanctity of life and of its importance in God’s plan.

“Excuse me Dr. Lemkau, are you saying that for really long voyages, astronauts will need to clone replacement body parts and eventually themselves?  This being the case, can John or Jane Smith the astronaut leave Earth as a thirty-year-old person, and a hundred years from now, or two hundred years from now, return to Earth – clone man or clone woman passport in hand to get through immigration, Homeland Security permitting, and be the same Smith that left Earth to begin with?”  Cinza’s question drew nervous laughter throughout the room, although that wasn’t his intent.

“Almost Dr. Brown, almost.  The problem is that genetics does not wholly define a person and his or her personality.  At some point, the cloned person will morph beyond the environmental knowledge threshold embedded in his or her psyche, either by computer chip or other mind-altering, memory-inducing stimulation. 

So although scientifically speaking, we can alter the mind as well as the body, the outside stimuli relating to the real-time external environment and new experiences will produce a very near replica of our John and Jane, but not an exactly identical human being.  Anyway, by the time these two people get back to Earth, many generations of their kinfolk will have come and gone so no one will be able to tell the difference,” explained Pig.

“So how long could John and Jane Doppelgänger go on, I mean, until when could the cloning continue of their bodies, memories, and personalities?”

“Into perpetuity,” Pig calmly replied to Cinza, “almost forever.”

#

The seven men still at work in the USGS’s Minerals and Management Service Division were as emotionally and mentally worn out as their guest, Dr. R. Cinza Brown, Director of Strategic Planning and Business Development of the Studebaker Institute, but the meeting was almost over now.  Dr. Morris Vine, an Acting Assistant Director at the Bureau, had one more question for his esteemed colleague Dr. Benjamin Lemkau, and as usual, the question had more to do with making Pig look foolish rather than to gain any particular knowledge about the subject matter at hand.

                “Dr. Lemkau, thank you for these most interesting and unusual insights into your expert world view of aeronautical engineering, astrophysics, medicine, geology, and philosophy.  Your views on Mars and the cosmos are most interesting, if not a little disturbing in fact.  Specially the part about blowing up Mars, if necessary, to achieve Dr. Brown’s objectives – I believe the analogy was to Abraham’s son Isaac.  Just a point of clarification, the Old Testament’s Abraham only offered Isaac up to God, but when Abraham passed God’s test of faith, Isaac was spared at the last minute.”

                “Well shucks, thanks Morris, no hard feelings I hope.  After all, this ain’t exactly rocket surgery!” Pig chuckled rather sarcastically, which drew laughs all around.  Dr. Vine became crimson with rage once again as he pressed his lips tightly together and asked his next question.

                “Very amusing,” Vine said, “but going back to the premise of your joyous ‘discovery’ of gold on Mars, I was wondering, what will the trigger be within the upper echelon of the current presidential administration to push responsible men to approve what may be perceived, and forgive my impertinence here, as a totally insane waste of taxpayer resources never before seen on such a Biblical scale?  I mean, is NASA just supposed to drop everything and say one fine day, ‘Okay everybody, we’re going to Mars to hunt for gold because Pig Lemkau thinks it’s a great idea.’”

                Pig thought for a second, totally deadpan in his response, and replied, “The greatest gold rush in American history was set off when a humble carpenter reached down into a clear, cold streambed at Sutter’s Mill and pulled out a solid gold nugget no bigger than a pea – you know Morris, about the size of your shriveled little brain – and James Marshall’s cry of ‘Eureka!’ was all that was necessary to fulfill our Founding Fathers’ belief in Manifest Destiny and creation of a great nation.”

                What happened next would live on in Geological Survey folklore for years to come, the day a gaggle of seven elderly Ph.D.’s got into a brawl in the main conference room of the Department of the Interior, and federal security police had to haul them away like common hooligans.  It began when Morris Vine, infuriated beyond his rational limits, grabbed a coffee carafe from the conference table and hurled it at Pig Lemkau, missing him by a mile but spraying stale coffee pretty much on everybody else. 

After Pig said, “You limey shit bird, you throw just like a little girl,” and roared with laughter, Vine lunged at him and tried pummeling the hulking mass with his tiny fists.  As Pig held him off like a child by the scruff of his neck and continued laughing, Vine just got angrier and angrier, and when the others came to Vine’s rescue, a scuffle of sorts ensued, pretty pathetic really, a bunch of out-of-shape old men pushing and shoving each other around.  There was lots of cursing and grunting and farting, but no one really inflicted any real pain on the other.

#

                As quietly and as nonchalantly as possible, Cinza exited the scene stage left and walked gently out into the good night.  The air was warm and humid that late summer evening when he stepped out onto Virginia Avenue, and for the first time in many months he wore a small grin, not from the comically disturbing scene he had just seen take place inside, but the feeling that approval and implementation of his brilliant project was within reach and his Operation GERDA - Gold Extraction and Relocation for Defense of America - was about to achieve liftoff. 

It was now almost ready, in the year of our Lord 2009, this terrible recession year, to be successfully presented to the top leadership of the Studebaker Institute and earn for himself not only a huge promotion, but quite possibly a partnership in the firm and fabulous compensation package.  Just imagine the solution he had just discovered to help save the country, thousands upon thousands of metric tons of gold on Mars. 

Of course, the White House would have to ultimately approve GERDA but that would not be a problem; the Studebaker Institute’s board consisted of retired high-level federal government officials who knew how to get things done.  The money involved was astronomical.

As he walked to the Green Line station to take the Metro home, he needed to think about what Pig had said just before the scuffle with Vine, and what they both had said about the “trigger” and the “pea,” so he sank into deep reflection as he strolled along the busy street and briefly caught the last glimmer of dusk. 

A pea-sized nugget had indeed set off the great gold rush of 1849.  Dr. R. Cinza Brown didn’t have an epiphany, and it didn’t come to him like a white-hot diamond burning a hole through his forehead and into his brain – it began as something much more subtle, like a warm, soothing bath that rolled over him, or the semiconscious message the brain sends itself during the lucid dreamy state.  
           Then sublime clarity, a solution: it was a classic case of Occam’s Razor, that the gold would never actually have to leave Mars, but rather just like on Earth, where we dig it up from beneath the ground and then return it back underground into vaults for safe keeping, we’ll just keep the gold on Mars and return small quantities to Earth for inspection by scientific experts to prove it exists, and convince the world it’s not an alleged hoax like the Hollywood inspired Moon landings back in the good old days.  We’ll build a Martian version of Fort Knox! 

And we’ll just leave it to our artisans on the Red Planet, the construction workers, America’s forgotten heroes who will save the day, like they always do and pave the way for a new golden age of Manifest Destiny.  Then Dr. Brown called his boss, Buddy Peoples…… (Continued in Part 16, but read Parts 2-15 first).

(This is a work of fiction.  Although some real-world names, organizations, historical settings, and situations are used to enhance the authenticity of the story, any similarities to actual persons, organizations, or situations are coincidental and all portrayals are purely the product of the author’s imagination.  This is the second edition abridged version 2019.  First edition Copyright © 2006.  All rights reserved)

Part 2: Servant Public

            
            We were wise indeed could we discern truly the signs of our own time; and by knowledge of its wants and advantages, wisely adjust our own position in it.  Let us, instead of gazing idly into the obscure distance, look calmly around us, for a little, on the perplexed scene where we stand… In the long run every Government is the exact symbol of its People, with their wisdom and unwisdom; we have to say, like People like Government.  Thomas Carlyle

Sam tried to recall how many Fourth of July army reunions there had been of the old outfit since Nam, but he couldn’t recall exactly – so many years had passed, and brain cells killed, that his mind tended to be a little fuzzy of late.  He recollected though, at least four or five organized ones for Foxtrot Company writ large and then the various informal mini-get-togethers like the epic Great Rust Belt Tour the winter of ’71 for a few in his old platoon. 

The year 1971 was an exciting time in the young life of Sam Noble.  He was living and working in Washington, D.C. and had more money in his pocket than he ever had before – as a GS-4 civil servant he was making almost ten grand a year and the world was his oyster. 

Plus the holiday season was getting close enough so that government was already starting to slow down, even though Christmas was still a few weeks away.  He wouldn’t be starting his diplomatic courier travels again until the new year, and he was excited about the prospects of going to mysterious Brazil for the first time. 

Archibald “Archie” Jefferson and Sam had been talking for months about getting together again, since Archie, although crippled for life from his car accident, was feeling chipper because his painful physical therapy, psychological counseling, and difficult recovery had finally concluded after many years.  He was living at home in Chicago’s south side in the Cabrini Green housing project and was dying to get away from the city and take a road trip somewhere with guys from the old platoon.

It was serendipitous when Howie Edwards called Sam from Arizona and said he was flying into Chicago for a job interview – Howie was finishing up his master’s degree at Thunderbird International and was also thinking about working for the federal government, just like Sam.  Somehow, he’d gotten a hold of four fifty-yard-line tickets to the Packers-Bears Monday night football game up in Green Bay so the destination was now set – that Howie, he always had an angle on somehow beating the system. 

Pedro Campana had just purchased a used Ford Econoline van and spruced it up with shag carpeting, eight track, and built-in bar, and said he was up for a trip to “break her in.”  He’d had enough of his native Little Havana working in his father’s shoe store in Miami, and the Cuban-American was itching to see more of the country.  Everybody was psyched and looking forward to maybe catching a glimpse of Howard “Tell it like it is” Cosell, Frank Gifford, and of course everybody’s favorite Texan, good ol’ boy Dandy Don “If ifs and buts were candy and nuts, we’d all have a merry Christmas” Meredith.

The van was perfect; it had a powerful V8 engine and plenty of room for Archie’s wheelchair, and in the likelihood that anyone passed out, it could sleep four people no problem; but the heater sucked.  The friends started out early Monday morning for a leisure drive up north – kickoff wasn’t until 8:00 p.m. local cheesehead time so there was no need to be in a hurry. 

#

They were certainly well stocked for partying all the way there, spending the night, and coming back the following day, or depending on how lucky they got with the chicks, maybe even the day after that.  Those large Wisconsin women, Archie called them “hodags,” they threw off a lot of heat in summer but in winter they kept you nice and toasty.

Archie couldn’t do any driving, but the other three could so one could spare the other lest the Quaaludes, angel dust PCP, reefer, the legendary Mogen David “Mad Dog” 20/20 fortified wine, and Boone’s Farm Apple wine get too overpowering.  Just in case a quick boost was needed to clear out the cobwebs, as usual Howie had a large supply of nose candy handy.  The only thing they forgot was beer, but that was easily solvable; after all, they were heading up to God’s country, the land of beer; the elixir of life.  Why not combine a football game outing with a pub-crawl on the way to the game in a sort of moveable feast-tailgate party situation?

          Since Archie’s colostomy bag needed emptying, and the other boys had to make a bladder stop anyway, a detour was made into lovely downtown Kenosha where the first pitchers of Heileman’s Old Style were purchased beneath the city’s belching smokestacks. 

#

Although only mid-morning, the nightshift workers from the AMC factory were downing shots of Jameson washed down with draft beer at their blue-collar tavern, so it seemed joining them was the only polite and neighborly thing to do.  By lunchtime, Sam’s posse had made it as far as a Racine tavern and enjoyed a few more pitchers of Old Style with press operators from the Case tractor plant.  It was already three in the afternoon when they stopped in west Milwaukee and, sure enough, the tavern they entered was full of guys who worked in the Harley-Davidson foundry.

After a quick pick-me-up from Howie’s little bag of magical white pixie dust, it was time to hustle northward – it was already starting to get dark up there in tundra country and they’d just make the kickoff if they didn’t screw around anymore.  Fond du Lac, that place was their downfall; so close, so damn close, not even sixty miles left to get to Green Bay. 

Later on, everybody needed someone to blame for not making it to the game, so they picked on Sam – they couldn’t blame Pedro, it was his ride they were using; Howie supplied the tickets, although on Tuesday morning that became a moot point; and hell, Archie was cripple so how could you blame him?  Truth is, no one remembered who suggested they stop one more time for “a last pitcher,” but Sam was driving the van at the time so he had to bear the burden of designated driver and party-commissioner-in-charge, even though his blood-alcohol content was probably five times above the legal limit.

The tavern was just off Highway 41, and a nice, friendly one it was.  Assembly line workers, mostly female, from Mercury’s outboard engine plant were gracious enough to invite the boys to a few pitchers on them, and then one thing led to another and the next thing you knew, the place was jumping with women and the bar was lined with shot glasses full of Peppermint Schnapps. 

Sam befriended a white mongrel dog just roaming around the premises, mostly Shepard by the looks of him, and fed it beer out of an ashtray all night spiked with schnapps.  The other guys got into a heated came of pinball and before long they were playing something called chug-a-pin.  “Come on yous guys, a shot of schnapps won’t kill you,” the lovelies said and, of course, the ex-GIs believed them. 

The beloved Packers were on television and this bar was packed to the rafters – Bart Starr was a god to Packer fans and this was to be his last game in the NFL, so everyone in Wisconsin was tuned in.  To this day, neither Sam nor any of his comrades could tell you who won the game, or anything about the game for that matter, but they never forgot waking up the next morning in the freezing van, in the tavern’s parking lot, faces caked with vomit, and stepping outside into a driving blizzard with wind chill temperature of minus twenty-degrees Fahrenheit to take a leak. 

When they opened the door to get out, Sam’s drinking canine partner was waiting for him all cute and curled up in the snow, but unfortunately little Fido had drank too much the night before, passed out, and apparently froze to death.

#

Company F’s official reunions had always been held in Washington because that city was the magnet for Vietnam vets protesting the war through the years, and also for vets not protesting the war but who supported the vet protesters – after all, it was a brotherhood right or wrong.  It did seem, though, that as the years passed the intervals between reunions grew longer since people just got on with their own lives raising kids and such, and when the old guys became empty-nesters, they rekindled interest in reunions again out of nostalgia for the old days, when they were young, and knowing their life’s race was almost run. 

Sitting around drinking beer with your cronies you didn’t feel quite so old, even though their/your faces bore only a passing weathered resemblance to the images captured by the black and white photos now faded and stored in shoeboxes. 

It is a fact of life, however, that good friends stay good friends and like fine wine, only get better with age.  It is another fact of life that if you can count on one hand the number of truly good friends you make during your relatively short time on Earth, you’re a lucky person.

Washington had a lot to offer for sightseeing and picture taking, something to keep the husbands and wives busy during the day, to pass time until the evening festivities when the one main objective was to get wasted, exchange witty barbs with each other, and relive but a small proportion of the total time spent on this Earth, but a raw time so indelible it was never to be forgotten.  Sam enjoyed the reunions, and didn’t mind the sarcastic digs at him being a stinky-cheese life-long bureaucrat, because after all, he was.  

Or being called the professor at every reunion, “Hey Sam, you wrote your masterpiece yet,” they’d say and Sam would respond, “No, not yet, but I’m thinking about it.”  One of these days, just wait, one of these days Sam would think.  So naturally Archie brought it up again at this July 4th army reunion.

Archie piped up, “Hey Sam, tell the guys how you came up with the lame name for a main character.”  Sam had been kidding around with Archie just a few days before about this really cool name he had come up with for a book hero.  Now he was on the hook because everyone shouted in unison for an explanation.

“Thanks Archie, you prick!” Sam said half jokingly.  “So my favorite actors of all time are John ‘Duke’ Wayne and Robert Mitchum so I just combined their names and came up with Duke Mitchum.  Plus the fact Robert Mitchum recorded one of my favorite songs of all time which is NASCAR’s anthem – The Ballad of Thunder Road.

And they were in two great movies together, the western ‘El Dorado’ and the story of D-Day ‘The Longest Day.’”  At which point Pedro chimed in and said, “You sure about that Sam, wasn’t the western called Rio Bravo?” 

Sam then clarified that this was a common mistake since the storyline and director for both movies was the same but Rio Bravo was made first starring Dean Martin and singer Ricky Nelson as the young heartthrob Colorado, whereas El Dorado had Robert Mitchum playing Dean Martin’s role and a young James Caan playing Ricky Nelson’s role but called Mississippi.  Whereas Nelson and Martin sang as a duo the song My Rifle, My Pony, and Me, Caan recited verses of the poem El Dorado by Edgar Allan Poe throughout the movie.  All Pedro could come up with was, “Oh.”  Everyone agreed Duke Mitchum was a pretty cool name.

#

No, the kidding around was alright, but what made him uncomfortable were the stories about kids and grandkids, and the exchanging of family photos with one another, and those furtive glances showing tinges of guilt they felt because they knew they shouldn’t be talking about such things in front of Sam – “remember what happened to his little girl, wasn’t it awful?” 

These lucky men, except for him and Archie, their legacy would be carried on and even though the memory of the family patriarchs might be forgotten over time, their genes would live on and so they’d achieve at least a small measure of immortality. 

Sam, on the other hand, was the last of the Mohicans – when he kicked the bucket, and later when his younger wife Nellie followed, that would be the end of the line.  It was like the lament at the end of the movie of the same name, one of Sam’s all-time favorites with Daniel Day-Lewis and the beautiful Madeleine Stowe, when the old chief, having just seen his son Uncas slain by the evil Magua says “I, Chingachgook – I am last of the Mohicans.” 

There was another line from that movie, one that he couldn’t get out of his head whenever he thought about his little Sarah.  It was when Hawkeye and Cora were behind the waterfall at night, and Magua disguised as a Mohawk was closing in on them with a war party with torches ablaze.  Hawkeye had no choice but to abandon Cora because it was better to run and fight another day rather than stand and die; it was the smart thing to do.  So he tells Cora, “Stay alive, no matter what.  I will find you.  No matter how long it takes, I will find you.”

#

The 2008 reunion was set up so everyone was supposed to arrive in Rosslyn on Wednesday, do sightseeing on Thursday, Foxtrot Company dinner and official party that night, Potomac River cruise on Friday, and fireworks on the Mall that night for the big finale. 

The best part of the schedule, though, was the impromptu party on Wednesday evening, usually in the hotel bar, after everyone checked in and the guys from his old platoon got together without the womenfolk in tow.  That’s when the adrenal was the highest, as high as it could get any way for men in their early to mid-sixties, and everyone felt like getting hammered with their army buddies, like in the olden days. 

Adding to the festive mood this year was the fact that everyone pretty much knew this was the farewell tour – after 2008 there would probably be no more reunions so why not let your hair down this one last time.  The logistics, personal health, and life in general were getting too complicated so the time had finally arrived for everyone to go his own way.

It wasn’t even close to midnight yet, but the old platoon didn’t have the staying power they had as young bucks, back when you could stay shit-faced until the wee hours of the morning and still manage to get into work.  They got drunk quicker, becoming raucous and all talking at the same time to anybody and everybody, and nobody in particular. 

Gathered around three joined-tables covered with Budweiser beer bottles and shot glasses that once held José Cuervo and Jack Daniels were nine good men - Sam and Archie, Pedro Campana, Jody Carp, Little George Young, Jimbo Phelps, Billy Gelman, Bobbo Hansen, and Stu Anderson – the two Steves couldn’t make it and no one knew where the other living members of the platoon were anymore; they’d lost contact. 

Company commander Captain Rainos was some big mucky-muck in the business world for the last thirty years and sent his regrets saying he couldn’t attend the reunion because he was doing a deal in China, opening up a new factory or something – he was president of a private sector corporation and apparently quite wealthy.

And battalion commander Lt. Colonel Parrent had stayed in the service after Nam and actually rose to the rank of major general before retiring to South Carolina, but lung cancer took him six years ago – too many non-filtered Chesterfields, Pall Malls, Lucky Strikes, and Camels over his career.  Then there was the company’s legendary First Sergeant George Savidge who left the service and moved to San Diego, where he ran a construction equipment company and later retired.           

The Top drove down to Baja Mexico to go fishing one fine day, going out by himself in a twenty-foot boat, and never came back alive.  Seems he had a heart attack and fell out of the boat, and his body washed up on shore three weeks later – that was fifteen years ago.

Feeling rather inebriated himself, Sam’s attention to the witty staccato conversation drifted in and out of consciousness, but he still managed to recall a few of the choicer tidbits through a haze of cigarette and cigar smoke.  It was a no-smoking joint but nobody cared, particularly the good-looking waitress who was making a fortune in tips.

… fucking baseball players today, they’re all on steroids, all their records should be wiped clean and they should get their asses barred for life from professional sports…

… Yastremski, now that was a baseball player, and how about Brooks Robinson, Stan Musial, Sandy Kofax, Hank Aaron, Dick Allen, Bob Gibson, Roger Maris, and the Mick…

… Rusty Staub, that was one helluva of a ballplayer, they called him “Le Grande Orange” up in Montreal…

… is he a relative of Agent Orange, that shit’s still got me tripping…

…yeah, and how about Roberto Clemente, I saw him in a game with Pittsburgh playing the Cubs at Wrigley, he made a throw from right field that was incredible and got a guy sliding into home…

…must have been the same Cubs who choked in ’69 even though they had great players like Santo, Beckert, Banks, Hunley, Williams, Hickman, and Kessinger, man that was some team… 

Archie said remembering 1969 well, when he was on army disability and still getting painful therapy for his back, and the Miracle Mets won the series.  He’d been in a wheelchair four years by then.

… hands down the best C-ration in Nam was the scrambled eggs with ham…

… no way, beans and franks, followed by spaghetti and meatballs…

… beans, beans, the musical fruit, the more you eat the more you toot, the more you toot the better you feel, so let’s have beans for every meal…

… I loved that canned processed cheese spread, the peanut butter and jelly, and the chocolate hockey pucks…

…  the lima beans and ham, and the desiccated meat in a can, that was some foul shit…

… the best latrine graffiti of all time: those that write on shithouse walls, roll their shit in little balls, those that read these words of wit, eat those little balls of shit…

… I still got that goddamn C-ration P38 can opener that didn’t work for shit…

… I’m an old cowhand, from the Rio Grand, but my legs ain’t bowed, and my cheeks ain’t tanned, I know every trail in the Lone Star State ‘cause I drove them all in my Ford V8 singing whoopee-eye-oh-ky-yay…

… okay, very good, but do your balls hang low do they rattle to and fro, can you tie’em in a knot, can you tie’em in a bow, can you throw’em over your shoulder like a continental soldier, do your balls hang low…

…or, better yet there’s a place in France where they wear no underpants and the men go around with their dingdongs hanging down…

… I’ll tell you what’s really overrated, fucking caviar…

… no shit, and throw in there calamari, and room temperature wine, cognac, and escargot…

… and nasty-assed sushi, who can eat that shit anyway, it’ll never catch on in America…

… so I got this great idea for a snack food called dippums, they’re two potato chips pressed together with onion dip sandwiched in between…

… better yet, jumbo marshmallows with graham cracker pieces and chocolate already stuffed inside for easy roasted s’mores…

… best idea ever, pre-packaged peanut butter and jam slices, like they do with processed cheese, no more torn up Wonder Bread…

… there you go again, baffle ‘em with brilliance and dazzle ‘em with bullshit…

… let’s kick the tires and light the fires big daddy, more fucking tequila shots please…

… drop kick me Jesus, through the goalposts of life…

… shit, you fuckers still ain’t drunk enough if you can lay down on the floor and not hold on…

… how can chickens be so fat and have such skinny faces…

… pass me them nachos, I’m so hungry I could eat a frozen dog, right Sammy…

… I ain’t smoked any weed in thirty fucking years, I hear it’s really expensive these days, even the Mexican sticks and seeds shit…

… our waitress is pretty damn fine looking, like Bob “Join the Peace Corps” Hope once said, she’s got the kind of lips I like, one on top and one on the bottom…

… yeah, she’s got my mojo working…

… hey, is it just me or does the Statue of Liberty have big tits…

… what has two legs and bleeds a lot, half a dog…

… date homeless women, you don’t have to worry where you drop them off…

… if money didn’t grow on tree, why do banks have branches…

… Brylcreem, a little dab’ll do ya, they love to get their fingers in your hair…

… anybody here ever smell mothballs, how’d you get their little legs apart?

… drinks anybody, I got the next round…

… don’t open up your shirt, you generous bastard, your heart’ll fall out…

… hey Archie, you still fixing photocopy machines, must be satisfying work…

… yeah, those paper jams and paper cuts, they can paralyze the whole office…

… you still over at that fancy think-tank Archie, why’d they hire you for, some affirmative action quota…

… speaking of paralyzed, hire the special needs folks, it’s fun to watch ‘em work…

#

Invariably, as it always did, the conversation turned to politics and the state of the U.S. economy.  Utter poverty still existed in so much of the world, Sam had seen it in his travels, but he never thought he would see so much poverty in his own country. Taxpayers were footing the bill yet again for an expensive war on a massive scale in the Middle East.  Except for Sam and Archie, the other guys were already drawing Social Security checks, having elected the smaller payout at age sixty two – times were hard, job retirement pensions weren’t enough to live on, and personal savings were almost non-existent in today’s America.    

And who knows, Social Security and Medicare might not even be around in a few more years.  Pedro had made his way up to Alaska by 1974, driving his old Ford van all the way, and worked a few years on the Trans-Alaska Pipeline where he made a bundle of money and opened up a VHS video equipment and tape rental store in Homer. 

Sam never got tired of hearing Pedro’s fabulous stories about working on the pipeline the three years the project was going.  He sold his store some years before because everything was going DVD and he couldn’t afford to make the investment to convert his business to offer the new hi-tech products. 

He and his wife still lived up there, and she worked at Safeway to make ends meet.  Old Stu still worked somewhere down in Mississippi on the Gulf, in one of the new fancy casinos built after Hurricane Katrina came through and destroyed everything.  Bobbo retired from the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad in Joliet after thirty years, got a good pension, and raised hunting dogs in his spare time. 

Billy Gelman was a math teacher in some Jewish elementary school in Los Angeles for many years, and still taught part time to earn a little extra spending money, and Little George owned half a mushroom farm just outside Portland.  Jody Carp retired from the real estate business and worked part time at Jack-in-the-Box somewhere in suburban Newark.  But everyone had one thing in common – they were geopolitical experts on a wide range of subjects.

“I’m telling you guys, those hacks on the boob tube are saying this one is going to be worse than the Great Depression.  We need to elect someone like Hapgood as President and throw out those fucking Republicans for screwing up the economy.”  Buchanan “Bo” Hapgood was a charismatic, young, and highly intelligent African-American politician and war hero from the First Gulf War’s Operation Desert Storm.  He was a fellow warrior from the Army’s First Infantry Division, the Big Red One.

Billy considered the so-called experts on 24/7 cable television broadcasts to be modern-day snake-oil salesmen and carnival hucksters, pretty-boys totally out of touch with mainstream America, sitting in their comfortable studios in New York and Washington, preaching their endless, biased drivel.

“No shit, I hear they got people waiting in long lines for discount groceries and free handouts all over the Midwest – in Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois because of those massive layoffs at Ford and GM.  Man, that’s a lot of Bunny Bread and Velveeta cheese sandwiches being eaten. 

Unemployment out there in the heartland is the highest it has been in fifty years, and let me tell you folks are worried.  This reminds me of the stories my parents used to tell me about the 1930s when people stood in bread lines for hours, and soup kitchens were everywhere.”  With that, Bobbo powered back another shot of Jack Daniels.

Little George had his own take on the state of America, “Makes you wonder if we’re better off now, or our kids are better off than when we was kids.  Why the hell did we go to Nam for anyway, and all those boys getting their asses shot off in Iraq and Afghanistan, it just ain’t right man.”

“My oldest granddaughter just started a small private college, real smart girl,” Jody said, “and it’s going to cost forty grand a year to send her there for tuition, books, food, dormitory, spending money; forty fucking grand a year!  My son has to scrape every cent together he can, sell one of his cars, take out a loan by mortgaging his house to the hilt, and the girl is still going to have to take out student loans herself. 

By the time she graduates, even with my son’s help, she’ll still owe over a hundred grand and be lucky to find work the way this economy is going.  Those fancy universities raise tuition two and three times faster than inflation and that’s discrimination against all the poor kids who deserve rich kid educations too.”

#

Jody was on a roll and added, “You know what my son gave her to take with her to school?  Beside an expensive laptop computer, cell phone, iPod, and all the usual crap; he gave her a jar of lodate pills, a gas mask, and a hazmat suit in case of terrorist attacks.  You know what lodite pills are for - they’re to be taken orally in case of radiation poisoning!  Now tell me we’re better off now than when we was kids.  Duck and cover classroom training in the 1950s was never like this. 

Hell, when I went to college on the G.I. Bill, I took my vinyl records, a record player, a typewriter, blue jeans, six cinder blocks, three wooden boards, hippy beads, a case of Ripple, a case of Pabst, a church key, and a sack of pot!”  That comment drew a loud round of applause and laughter.

The studious Stu had a much more serious, historically based view of current events.  “Who the hell are we anyway to preach to other cultures and religions how to set up a democratic government system, I mean, realistically what makes us such experts?  During America’s first fifty years, our national policy was genocide to rid the country of those pesky Indians, then it took us another fifty years to end slavery…”

Archie, the only African American present, interrupted and drew more laughs by saying, “I hear that, fuckin’ white men kept the brothers down a long time, but we bounced back stronger than ever,” and then there were high-fives around the tables. 

“… and then it took us another fifty years to give women the right to vote.  And guess what, fifty years after that we were the first country to use atomic bombs ever, and we dropped them on two crowded cities full of civilians.  No one has done anything nearly as brutal or destructive since, not even the terrorists.”

Stu’s last comment sounded way too liberal so Sam spoke up by saying, “That’s true, but had Truman not dropped the bomb we could have lost over a million boys trying to take fortress Japan.”

“You’re right Sam, but you know what really worries me,” Stu paused a second obviously concerned, “it’s what if our country has finally reached a stage in its history where its ungovernable, I mean, is our economy and population just too damn big, and is our system too damn corrupt and complicated?”  Jody asked, “Whadaya mean?”

“Well, our government set up by the Founding Fathers started out as an experiment, no one really knew if our fledgling democratic system would work or not.  It has never worked perfectly ever since, even after more than 200 years, or else we wouldn’t have had the Civil War.  Who’s to say that in today’s world, with the existing technologies, geopolitics, demographics, race, and all that bullshit, that a President, any President, is able to lead at all, and that a Congress is able to legislate, the way things are currently organized. 

I mean just look at us; our country is technically bankrupt, and all the politicians ever do is argue with each other, try to blame each other for screwing up the economy, and steal money from taxpayers to pay for pet projects to get themselves reelected.  Or the president sends more troops abroad. 

#

Do you know we have American troops in over 100 countries around the world to help with nation building – how much does that cost?  And what does the world think of us?  They hate us!  Remember the saying, ‘let no good deed go unpunished?’”  It was getting late, and the boys were fading fast.

“Man, that’s some pretty heavy shit, what y’all do all day, watch CNN and Fox News?”  Archie’s comment restored at least some degree of levity into the conversation as he gulped down yet another shot of Jack.

“No, Stu’s right,” Sam spoke up, “Our government is really screwed up.  Public servants my big fat ass!  We’re just the servant public and elected politicians in Washington are the lords and masters.  They should empower us more and themselves less, the way our Founding Fathers intended it to be.  What happens one day if waving the flag and telling young men to go to war to fight for this country isn’t enough?  Kids aren’t stupid, they’re not going to go to the Middle East to protect oil supplies so fat cats back here can make big money while they get their asses shot off.  

That’s really our bedrock if you think about it – patriotism – and if people ever start questioning that, we’re screwed.  It’s all about having rules and then getting everyone to follow them, equally, and together, and not allowing the elite of society to do whatever they feel like doing.”

“Goddamn Sam, well said, considering you’re a life-long teat-sucking bureaucrat.  Why don’t you write your goddamn book anyway if you’re so smart?  They’ll keep a copy of it in the Library of Congress forever and you’ll be immortal.  What other nuggets of wisdom do you have for us?”  As everyone laughed at Sam, hurting his feelings slightly although no one noticed, Stu was draining his beer bottle with one hand while simultaneously raising his other hand to get the waitress’ attention to order a replacement.

“Yeah Sam, and make sure you put in the book a chapter on your medals, and how you and Archie got to be such fucking war heroes by ‘killing’ a bunch of oil drums and how he shot you in the ass.”  Pedro’s comment drew out yet another burst of laughter.

“You’re goddamned lucky, Pedro, I was fixin’ to double-tonk your ass anyway and take all your money,” was Archie’s response and kept the laughter going. 

It used to be at this juncture, in the recurring mention of the “oil drum caper” at reunions, that Howie Edwards’ name usually came up, but this was the second reunion that no one chose to bring up his name; the consensus had become that what he did was a black mark against the outfit so he could never be forgiven, no matter what the reason was for doing what he did – that is, with the exception of Sam, who still considered Howie his friend. 

This forgiveness took great effort because, after all, Howie was the first spook in the history of the CIA to defect to the Soviet Union and by so doing dishonored and shamed not only his country but the old platoon as well. 

#

After a moment, Sam continued, “Well, I think the average American breadwinner just wants to work for a living, be happy, pay taxes, and make sure he takes good care of his family’s future.  As long as he or she perceives the system to be working fairly, whether it is or not, they’re happy and tears will well up in their eyes when they sing the Star Spangled Banner at a ball game. 

It may sound corny, but the heart and soul of America lies in the spirit of its people, their generosity, their unquestioning belief in the system, in God, in the country’s leadership, the responsibility they feel to pay taxes, and to help neighbors in times of crisis long before the government shows up to help like what happened in New Orleans.  If this trust in the system ever starts eroding, watch out – we may never get it back and then our experiment with democracy, and our republic, is history.

It’s only when we have catastrophes and disasters, things our government can’t mask with bullshit spin control that we see how weak our leadership truly is – like 9/11 and Katrina.  The first event was a complete failure of our intelligence community, and the second of incompetent people at FEMA. 

Even with plenty of advanced warning, New Orleans’ problems were laid bare and we saw all the poverty that had been swept under the carpet for generations by politicians.  Government spending in Washington is completely out of control because they use money as a substitute for efficient management, that’s why we’re bankrupt.”

Sam, it seemed, had all this bottled up for a long time, and he had a quiet and attentive audience.  Jody spoke up and asked, “Yeah, but there must be some kind of budgetary process to catch spending abuses, that’s why we have a Congress.”

“There’s a process alright, but no one is held accountable, so when no one respects the rules, you don’t have any rules.  Trust me, people in government don’t want to rock the boat on their watch, all they want to do is to retire and draw their fat pensions and leave the problems for somebody else to worry about after they’ve gone.”

“So what’s the solution Sam?  Politicians and bureaucrats are like wives – can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em.”  Jody asked a very good question, and Sam paused for a second before answering so the laughter could die down.

“Well, I ain’t no genius but it seems to me there are only two possibilities – make government as small as possible, and by that I mean fire about eighty-percent of those worthless fuckin’ bureaucrats in Washington immediately, me included…”  That brought Sam cheers and pats on the back all around – of course, he was retiring in a couple of years so his pension was secure.  “Or what Sam?”  Jody was persistent.

“Or find an endless supply of wealth somewhere, a veritable cornucopia that just keeps on giving, one not funded by taxpayers, and then just let the politicians spend to their hearts content, not that they don’t already.  But at least they wouldn’t be taking money out of the pockets of America’s working poor and soon-on-their-way to be poor, like us guys.”

“Hear, hear, I’ll drink to that,” Jody said satisfied with Sam’s answer and in unison all the glasses were raised in toast, well, except for Archie’s.  He was so drunk by now he was almost falling out of his wheelchair, but could still manage to speak up rather loudly.

“You know what it’s about man?  It’s like my grandma told me.  She said, ‘There but for the grace of God go I.’ It don’t matter what you say, shit’s going to happen in its own way and in its own time.  When you’re born, you’re life’s already figured out by the good Lord, it’s fate and you can’t change it.  It’s all about politics man, just politics. 

You got to grab all the gold where you can and when you can and fuck everybody else.  It’s always been about gold, man, and it’ll always be about gold!  You assholes don’t know what I know!”

No one said anything for the next few moments, not because they were thinking about Archie’s drunken outburst, weird sounding as it was, but because it was that time of night and that moment of a party when everyone was totally inebriated and knew it was time to wrap it up – at 9:00 a.m. in the morning everyone was to meet in the lobby to catch the Metro over to the Smithsonian and hit the museums along the Mall and go sightseeing with the wives. 

Archie felt insulted that no one paid tribute to his or his grandma’s wisdom and although he remained silent, he was pissed off about it.  He also didn’t like that crack about hiring special needs people, being confined to a wheelchair was nothing to joke about.  After the sightseeing, there was to be the main event.

#

Everyone from Foxtrot was to meet at the Lincoln Memorial for a tour, then walk over to pay respects at the Vietnam Memorial, like they did at every reunion, to touch the Wall gently over a couple of the 58,196 names made immortal by the cold, black granite engravings, something which never ceased to be a very moving and emotional experience and somber occasion. 

It’s always been true and it’ll always be true, that well worn cliché of freedom didn’t come free.  And everyman among them, Sam included, knew it wouldn’t be much longer until each of them had a black slab of cold tombstone carved with their names on it – the baby boomer generation of veterans was coming to an end.  Will their sacrifices be remembered?

“Gentlemen, I don’t know about the rest of you, but it’s past my bedtime,” as Pedro uttered these words glancing at his watch, everyone pretty much mumbled in agreement and began shuffling about; he continued, “but it’s time again for our sacred tradition, it’s time to remember our fallen comrades from the old platoon, so will you all join me in lifting a glass in respectful memory of Private First Class Theodore O’Connor and Corporal Walter Hoffman, who fought and died for this country, right or wrong.  May God bless ‘em and may God bless our United States of America.”

To a man, everyone joined Pedro and lifted a glass to toast the memory of their young friends who never had a chance to grow old, and chimed in with “to Teddy and Wally, amen, or hear, hear.”  Christ, they were barely out of their teens when they died.

(This is a work of fiction.  Although some real-world names, organizations, historical settings, and situations are used to enhance the authenticity of the story, any similarities to actual persons, organizations, or situations are coincidental and all portrayals are purely the product of the author’s imagination.  This is the second edition abridged version 2019.  First edition Copyright © 2006.  All rights reserved)