KONFESSIONS OF A KID KOLD-WARRIOR
KONFESSIONS OF A KID KOLD-WARRIOR: Part One
~~~~~ How I Completed CIA Training at Age 16 ~~~~~
To many BroJon readers, this may seem to answer the question of how I know all those things I write about. I must be some kind of CIA dis-information con-artist. I must be on the "inside" of the company. But if you think that, you would be wrong. I have never at any time in my life ever worked for the CIA or the federal government. But whenever major world events were happening around me, I always seemed to be standing at the right place at the right time. Or maybe that's the wrong place at the wrong time.
It started out when I was born at a young age. That's an old comedian's joke, but in this case it has actual physical meaning. I was born Dec 7th 1944. The normal cutoff date for entering first grade at age six was December 15th. Since I was born just a week before that date, I was always the youngest person in all my classes going all the way through school. Most of my classmates were almost a whole year older than me. I started kindergarten when I was four, and started first grade when I was still five. Thus I was "born" at a "young" age. And I even made matters worse.
When I was four years old, a saleslady came to our door dressed as a nurse. She was selling encyclopedias. When the lady told my mother, who was divorced at the time, that to make sure her son grows up smart, he needs a set of encyclopedias. Maybe out of guilt for not providing me with a good father, or for whatever reason, she bought the encyclopedias.
The 1948 edition of Compton's Pictured Encyclopedia had numerous page-long children's stories with interesting cartoon drawings. My mom read me those stories as convenient bedtime stories. I noticed as she told me the same stories over and over, that the story had something to do with those squiggles all over the page. I have no idea how, but by age five, I was reading the stories to my mom.
My mom noticed that I spent a lot of time reading those stories in "my" encyclopedias. I had discovered that there were many other "stories" about how TV worked, building jet airplanes and the history of the Greek Peloponnesian wars and even World War Two. I was fascinated by everything I read. One day, my mom off-handedly said, "You know - if you read all those books from cover to cover they'll probably give you a college diploma."
Well, I knew what a "college" was, since me and my mom lived on the third floor of an apartment house on College Avenue, just three houses away from the campus of UC Berkeley. My mom worked on the campus, and I frequently used the campus as my playground. I got to see all those older grown up kids carrying books and going into very interesting classrooms with fascinating equipment at the front of the rooms. I definitely wanted to play in all those classrooms with all those gadgets that I had only seen in my encyclopedias. What I didn't know was, what a 'ploma was. But whatever it was, if it was something that let those big kids go play in those classrooms, I wanted a 'ploma too. Several weeks later, at age five, I completed my project of reading the Compton's Encyclopedia from cover to cover.
That evening I lay in bed and called out to my mom, "MOM, I finished reading the 'cyclopedia!" My mom, yelled back, "OK Don't forget to brush your teeth." Right here I need to stop and say, what just happened was one of the greatest cases of mis-communication in my life. My mom must have thought I meant, I was finished reading for the night, while I actually meant, I had just finished reading the 14 volumes of Compton's from cover to cover. She never told the man at the university that I had read the complete Compton's, she probably even forgot what she had told me several weeks before about them giving me a 'ploma. I waited expectantly for weeks, but no man from the college ever came and gave me a 'ploma at age five. I was broken-hearted to say the least.
I figured it was just another case of the world not being fair to little kids. I had worked for hours on coloring that pony from the back of the Wheaties "Win a Pony" contest box. But I never won any pony. Nor did I ever win my Hopalong Cassidy shirt from the back of the Cheerieos box, nor the Straight Arrow Indian magic bead ring from the Shredded Wheat box insert cards. Despite all my best efforts I never won nuttin', not even a 'ploma from the college. The world just wasn't fair. At age five, I was about ready to give up on Santa Claus and the Toothfairy, as an adult conspiracy aimed at showing how stupid and gullible little kids are - they never win anything, no matter how hard they work at it. I was going to make the world pay for that.
Without my 'ploma, I was resigned to go through school with all those other little kids in first grade. Second and third grade was only a little better. I went to Cragmont School in Berkeley, California, high on the hill above the college campus. Cragmont has the unique reputation of being the school which has produced more PhD's per pupil than any other school in the world. The reason for that is that all the PhD's and the academic elite at Cal Berkeley lived in that small area of the Berkeley hills above the campus and they all sent their kids to Cragmont School. But I didn't know anything about that. I felt I was going through school with a buncha academic peons. I wanted to be in those classes down the hill in those UC college lecture halls. What was I doing in second grade? It must be some kind of giant mistake. The world just isn't fair.
Well, I fixed 'em. What do you do in a class of mental peons? Simple, you pee on em'. Actually, I wet my pants about twice a day in class. In 1950, there wasn't much of what we now know as Child Psychology, so I was diagnosed as having some physical disorder. But no, the doctors never found anything physically wrong with me. Each day in my lunch bag or box, I had to take an extra set of dry underwear to change into. Even that didn't work.
I changed my pants in the morning, but when I got wet pants in the afternoon, my teacher sent me to the principal's office to "dry out." This became a daily exercise. At least I got out of that stupid class. With my wet pants hanging over her radiator, the principal let me sit and read any of the books on her shelves. I was fascinated. In the classroom, they were studying ABCs, cursive writing, and counting to one hundred. In the principal's office I was studying ancient literature, poetry, science and intermediate Algebra. We played the "wet pants" game for two years. Obviously, I was a "special needs" student, but in 1950, that was decades before any school ever discovered the meaning of the term. All of this could have been solved if they had just given me my college 'ploma at age five. But Nooo, the world wasn't ready for that.
In 1953, all of this completely changed. My new stepfather had just completed his PhD with honors at Cal, Berkeley. His first job was in upstate New York, where he was in demand as a nuclear engineer, based on his thesis research into heat transfer. I was supposed to go into fourth grade. But since I came from out of state, I needed to be evaluated as to which grade I would go into. I had assumed that since I had come from a mere "little city" in northern California, and New York was a big town, that maybe they might think I was some rural little town hick and they might even put be back into third grade again. I clearly did not want to do repeat that again. So I pleaded with my parents to make sure they, at least, put me in fourth grade with people my age, and not get put back into third grade. That may or may not have been the second greatest mis-communication with my parents.
We all drove to a small house, located in a big cow pasture, with a herd of Holstein cows just outside the windows. Mrs. Green was going to give me the test to determine which grade I went into. I went with her into a small quiet office-like room with a big desk and lots of bookshelves full of books. The first part of the test was easy. I later learned it was the standard Wexler Children's IQ test, with those pictures of boxes and circles and you needed to match up all the same pictures in a fixed amount of time. The tricky part was when Mrs. Green needed to evaluate my academic ability.
This was mostly a reading comprehension test. I read "See Dick and Jane run." OK. And then some story about two boys and a balloon, and then something akin to a Huckleberry Finn story. So far so good. I felt sure that this lady was going to trick me and find something which I hadn't read and then claim that I can't read and then I should be put back in third grade. She was taking a long time on this test, and giving me lots of books to read. I was starting to sweat it, which was hard for a little eight year old kid with almost no sweat glands. Mrs. Green gave me several other books to read aloud, and then she became visibly upset or angry. I didn't know what was happening. She was really agitated. I was sure now, she was going to put me back into third grade.
She stood up and walked around the room looking at the books on her bookshelves. After several minutes she took a book from the shelf and laid it in front of me and said, "Read this paragraph." I began to read, "The easiest means to teach the method of eigenvalues is to instruct the students to gather terms of like order and..." Mrs. Green shouted, "STOP. That's enough." She just glared at me.
I had pronounced "eigenvalues" as eee-genvales, but it could also be pronounced eye-genvalues. I had never heard anybody ever pronounce that word before, I had only read it. If I had gotten the wrong pronunciation, then Mrs. Green would know I don't know what I was talking about and was only mouthing the words. It was fifty-fifty, either I had gotten the pronunciation wrong or gotten it right. Either I was going into fourth grade like I wanted, or she was putting me back into third grade. She continued to stare at me. And then, after what seemed to be minutes, she asked, "Do you know what those words mean?"
I said, "Yes'm, that's a book that 'fessors at colleges use to teach their PhD students how to write college books about advanced calculus using eigenvalues." I knew about that, since I had lived next to a college for years, and my own stepfather had just gotten his PhD, so I knew about 'fessors and PhDs. But, actually I had just cheated, since I had read the title of the book printed at the top of each page. Mrs. Green grabbed the book from my hands, and slammed it shut, and then she just stared at me. What? Had I just done something wrong? Was I going to be sent all the way back to second grade? Finally she snapped curtly, "Mr. Smith, please go out and wait in the sitting room while I talk to your parents." Hooboy, now I know I'm in for it. She might even tell my parents that I cheated on the test.
I sat in the sitting room for a very long time. It seemed like a half hour or so. The whole rest of my life was hanging in the balance. Was I going into fourth grade, or being sent back to third grade, or even worse, back to second grade because I had "cheated" on the test? I sat nervously on the edge of the cane chair, with my legs dangling halfway to the floor. I swung my legs back and fourth out of sheer terror, what else could I do? I wanted to run away, but my legs just swung back and fourth. I was only eight years old. I sat in silence, with only the crisp ticking of the pendulum clock on the mantle, the faint swooshing of my legs through the air, and the soft mooing of the cows outside the window. At that moment in time, I would rather have been outside playing with the cows.
The office door finally opened and my parents came out. I looked at their faces, but nobody said anything. My parents were looking downward and shaking their heads. Mrs. Green stood there in the doorway and again just stared at me, but also said nothing. My family walked to the car in complete silence. What was wrong? What had just happened.?
We sat in the car in silence, and then my mom turned around and said, "Well, you're going into fourth grade." I shouted "WOW, Wheeuu!" My mother continued with something about the lady had wanted to put me in 10th grade, since New York state law only lets her advance students 6 grades at a time. Since I was barely old enough for 4th grade, she could only put me in 10th grade. That's what they had been talking about for such a long time. That didn't make much sense to my parents nor to me at the time.
But I also remembered that Mrs. Green had spent a lot of time searching through her bookshelves trying to find those college and graduate level textbooks. And she was absolutely shocked when I read those books with ease, and explained to her what they meant. She probably wanted to put me into graduate school at age eight. But she only represented the New York state school system which goes to grade 12, and state law only permitted her to advance me to grade 10. College was another matter completely out of her hands.
But hold on. I had been frustrated that the man never came from the college and never gave me my 'ploma at age five. I had been ready for college at five, and had gotten my own library card at age six. I had begun to go to the library at six years of age and took home about five or six books each week. By age eight I had read some 700 books. Most people haven't read that many books in their whole life. So I probably was ready for graduate school at age eight. But thank god, for Santa Claus and the Toothfairy, I had finally gotten my wish. I was going into fourth grade. But actually only me and those cows outside Mrs. Green's window know what really happened when she gave me those tests. But now you know the most embarrassing secret that I have tried to keep hidden from everyone all my life.
To figure out why it's so embarrassing, we need to do a little math. The definition of IQ is Mental age divided by Chronological age, and then multiplied by one hundred. IQ tests are made up so that the average person can do about half of the problems on a portion of the test in a given time, of say one minute. That gives you the Mental Age. Then divide by the person's actual age, but stop counting age by about 18 years old, since there is not much continued growth in the brain and mental acuity after age 18.
Because I didn't seem to fit into anybody's testing system, I have repeatedly been given IQ tests. At age 22, my wife was going to college to get her degree in Psychology. I was then working full time as a radio Disk Jockey to make a living and put my wife through school. I had dropped out of college to figure out what I wanted to do when I "finally grew up." By age 22, I had already studied in six college majors and couldn't figure out which one to take. It was all boring to me, since I had already read all the textbooks. I could read a college text book cover to cover in less than an hour. As part of my wife's Psychology courses she took an upper division course in IQ testing. I was her "guinea pig." I went through about 12 standard IQ tests. Taking one test per week. All the tests that were available in the 1960's.
But there was a problem. The way to score the test is to add up the individual scores on each portion of the test, and then take the weighted average to find the IQ. Nobody is supposed to finish all the tests, and get a perfect 100 on the test. If that happens, then the score, depending on whether it's the Stanford-Binet, or the Wexler or whatever, has the maximum IQ of 200 or 220 depending on the test. But when I took the tests, I also always finished the tasks in about half the time. When I was supposed to match all the patterns or boxes that I could in 60 seconds, I had already completed the test correctly in about 30 seconds. We had to sit and wait for the stopwatch to reach 60 seconds. My wife could never figure out how to score the tests. There was no provision or calculation for completing a test in half the alloted time. She sought help from her university instructor who taught the course. He also had no clue. It's never supposed to happen. He suggested I visit some friends of his who were teaching and doing research in mental testing at Stanford University.
I spent several days at Stanford doing tests. At first, I thought it was fun, but then it was just more tests and they never told me anything about the results. Maybe they had no results. I figured it was a waste of my time, and it was also very embarrassing. Each day some 20 or 30 Stanford students and older faculty came by and just looked in the doorway or through the glass and just stared at me. What? Did I have spinach caught in my teeth, was my fly open? What? Why are all those people just coming and staring at me. They never said anything, just stared. I was embarrassed. It reminded me of Mrs. Green, who also didn't say anything either - just stared at me.
Maybe Mrs. Green knew something that those Stanford people couldn't figure out. As an adult, there was no test which they could use to score me. But at age eight, Mrs. Green had some tools which she could use. Let's see, she seemed to want to put me into graduate school, given all those graduate level texts she wanted me to read. Most graduate level students are about age 23 or 24. I was age eight. So my Mental Age was about 24, and my Chronological Age was 8. Divide 24 by 8 and multiply by 100 and you can figure out why no standard adult test with a top score of IQ of 220 would work for me. I was way too far outside the curve. Isaac Newton was estimated to have an IQ of 200, and Albert Einstein was a mere mental-midget with IQ of about 180. Somehow I just didn't fit into their "little league team." I feel a much greater affinity to such people as Benjamin Franklin, Leonardo DaVinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Nikola Tesla. But that's just a feeling, I never got to talk to them. I can only read what they wrote and did, and all that they accomplished.
Please do not write to me about this topic. I am totally embarrassed by it and don't want to discuss it. I don't know what to say. What I just wrote was simply my explanation of why the Brother Jonathan Gazette is unique. Why I write on so many topics, and seem to know things that nobody else knows or can figure out. I hope it will slow down all the email I constantly get asking about how I know all the things I know. The answer is: I don't know how I know, but I must have read it somewhere, and I just figured out the rest - it all seems so simple to me.
Also it's the answer to how at age 16, in the spring of 1961, I and about 60 military officers all dressed in civilian clothing, except for me, went through a CIA multi-day training course at Fort Ord, California, in Special Operations Team tactics to be used in Vietnam. In 1961, nobody had heard of Vietnam, it didn't hit the news media until the end of 1963. All the officers in the class from the Army, Navy and Marines, were much older than me, about 25 to 35 years old. Most were Lieutenants and Captains, some few were field grade officers. They were all out of uniform, but with some pants, or boots, fatigue caps or jackets showing that they were military, or soon to be ex-military, and hinting at which branch of service. I was only 16, and I was in full Air Force officer's uniform. What was I doing there and Why? Why did my uniform look much sharper, crisper and more GI than even the Army officers teaching the class? It might help to understand if I told you, that of the 60 military officers, I scored the highest on the final exam. But that wasn't the reason, just the result.
For me, one result was that I learned a whole lot about the later President Kennedy Assassination in 1963 and the ten-year long War in Vietnam in 1964 - but it seemed I was looking at those events from the "inside." It took me several years to piece the information all together and figure it out. In 1961, I too, wondered what was I doing in an Air Force officer's uniform at age 16, on a vast Army training base called Fort Ord? Why was the US government showing so much interest in me, and sending me to this special training? What was I being trained for? And why? To find some of the answers read the book excerpt "Black Gold Hot Gold" which can be found on the front page of the Brother Jonathan Gazette....
Marshall Smith
Editor, Brother Jonathan Gazette
newseditor@brojon.com
To Subscribe to the Daily Digest go here:
http://www.brojon.org/digestform.html
--------------------- END OF PART ONE ------------------
KONFESSIONS OF A KID KOLD-WARRIOR: Part Two
~~~~~ How I Completed CIA Training at Age 16 ~~~~~
If you've been following this story, you know that somehow at age 16, I was put through some very strange training at Fort Ord in 1961. How could such a thing happen? Actually it started when I was 14.
In 1959, I was a good little boy, and went to church with my parents. I also was in the church youth group which met on Saturdays. I had the hots for one of the girls in the group, which had the tendency to keep me going back to church. Our group had occasional speakers who talked to our small group. One day, a man in an Air Force uniform came to speak. I learned he was Major Rozak from something called the Civil Air Patrol. I had never heard of that group.
He spoke about their activities, searching for lost airplanes, training teenage cadets as airmen, and running a radio communication network. I asked what kind of radios. He said military short wave and VHF radios. Wow. I had studied radios since I was six, and finally got my amateur radio license with no help from anybody at age 13. But the only receivers and transmitters I had, were the ones I had built myself. If I could only get my hands of some of those high-powered military radios – wow.
It only took me less than a week to switch my teenage allegiance from church girl to Civil Air Patrol military radios. I joined the CAP that next Thursday evening. For the next year and a half my stepfather drove me to the Thursday meetings since I wasn't old enough to drive. At the first meeting, Squadron 114, was just starting and only had five cadets – me and four other boys. For some reason I was chosen as the cadet squadron commander, but I didn't really know what that meant. Over the next four years, that squadron grew from five boys, in San Jose, California, to become the largest squadron in the US. This was mostly due to the charismatic leadership of Major Rozak, and also to me, who did some rather strange things, but I didn't know about them until after I did them.
The normal Civil Air Patrol training was to take classes from six training manuals and then pass a written test, on the course material in each manual. This normally took about two years. Instead of buying the manuals separately, they also had a hardbound version with all six manuals included, and I bought that one. Of course, I read all six manuals from cover to cover, all in one night. I told Major Rozak, I had completed all the manuals and was ready to take the tests. The next week, I passed all the tests in one evening. Normally, as you complete each phase of the training, the cadet rises in rank from a one-striper Cadet Third Class up to a six-striper Cadet Master Sergeant. But there was a problem. Rozak told me the Air Force had a time-in-grade requirement, and I had to wait 3 months before I could advance from one stripe to the next. To begin officer training I would have to wait the full 18 months. OK. But I wasn't going to just sit on my hands waiting. It was at this time that Major Rozak realized that by making me the Cadet Squadron Commander, he had picked a “really hot one.” My real “military training” was about to begin, and I was only 14.
Within weeks I was running the weekly northern California CAP radio network from a facility called the Santa Clara County Communication Center. This locked and secure facility housed all the communications for the county fire, sheriff, and other agencies. I read the technical manuals on how to repair, tune and operate the radios. I worked in a special military room, using an old Civil Defense yellow-box Hallicrafter's “Gooney Bird” on two meters. That radio only transmitted about 100 miles. To send messages to all the squadrons in northern California, I had to transmit from San Jose to the squadron in Santa Rosa, they repeated the message to the squadron in Sacramento, and then on to the Squadron in Eureka, and so on to the other squadrons. They repeated the procedure in reverse to send messages to me, and then I passed them all on to CAP national headquarters in Texas. I didn't bother to ask how I, as a raw recruit, only having been a cadet for six weeks, from a squadron that had only been in existence for that same six weeks, got to be the central military communication point for all of the northern California network. I was only 14, and didn't know enough to ask.
Within months, I was a qualified and experienced military radio communications expert. This became apparent during our rare search and rescue operations. We looked for lost aircraft. This happened several times a year. Most of the search pilots, were Senior CAP members, mostly ex-Korean War fighter pilots who owned their own planes. Most of the Korean air dogs, participated in the search and rescue operations, because the Air Force reimbursed them for their gas and oil. Thus they got free flight time in the air, all at government expense. That was really important for some of those ex-military pilots. They had bought old government surplus warplanes from World War II or the Korean War, for pennies on the dollar. But those humongous powerful engines sucked gas like a junkie, sometimes more than ten gallons a minute. Flying those planes could cost an arm and a leg. About the only way those pilots could ever afford to fly their planes was to join the Civil Air Patrol, and get reimbursed for the fuel by the government.
My job as the radio operator at the command headquarters was to direct all the planes to their search areas, take their search reports and then direct them on to the next search area grid. With 20 or more planes in the air, this was a complicated job. Sometimes if it were a lost military plane, I also had to direct Coast Guard helicopters and regular Air Force search craft. I soon had a reputation as one of the best military radio operators in California. I could direct remote military operations from the command headquarters. I was good at the job, but most of those military pilots never knew that I was only 14, only the pilots from our squadron knew that.
In the next month or so, a very strange thing happened. Major Rozak suggested that I attend the monthly meeting of the CAP Northern California Cadet Council. I had never heard of it. This was a monthly meeting of the cadet squadron commanders and staff from all the squadrons in northern California. They met on a Saturday morning at the Army base in the Presidio of San Francisco. But to get there, I needed to have regular Air Force Travel Orders to get on the Army base. Rozak typed up and signed the orders. I also had to have my stepfather drive me, since I still wasn't old enough for a drivers license.
The meetings were among 30 or so, mostly older cadets, about age 18 or 19, and all were the high ranked cadet officers from northern California. I wasn't an officer. I was only a two-stripper Cadet Second Class, but I “was” the Cadet Commander of Squadron 114, with travel orders to be there. I mostly sat quietly and just listened. I was learning something. Two years later I was running those meetings. At the time for my second monthly meeting I asked Rozak for new Travel Orders. He said, “Type them up yourself.” I typed them up in triplicate with the new dates and times, and took them to him for signature. He said, “No, what you do is, type in the signature box, “sf” for “signed for” and then my name, and then below that type your name and then you sign it. That way the signatures are all real and legal.”
I said, “OK.” But then paused and thought about it. Then asked, “Does that mean I can type up Air Force orders to go to any military base, to carry out any business or purchase anything specified, and it's all on my own signature?” He didn't answer. Instead, he just half grinned at me, then ever so slightly, tilted his head and gave me a half-wink. I said, “Ahhh sooo -- OK.” In the succeeding years, he repeated that same gesture many times. I quickly learned that I was being taught “insider” military secrets or procedures which were non-standard or unknown to most military people, and it was something he couldn't talk about – so he just winked. Obviously I was his best student. But what was he teaching me, and why?
Months later it was time for my first Civil Air Patrol Summer Encampment. This is two weeks of something that looks like standard military boot camp. There were numerous Air Force advisers there to make sure the basic training met Air Force standards. At Mather Air Force Base near Sacramento, we had about 600 teenaged cadets going through military basic training. Including shooting guns, marching and drilling, and being yelled at by tough sergeants, and all that “good military stuff.” The trick here was that to get from San Jose we took a large military C-141 MATS (Military Air Transport Service) plane from Moffat Naval Air Station near San Jose to Mather Air Force base near Sacramento.
To do that, we needed Air Force travel orders to get on both the Navy and Air Force military bases and to get onto the military plane. On the way back, after the two week experience, Major Rozak came and sat next to me on the plane to ask how my training went. We chatted for a few minutes then I asked, “These travel orders are the same as the one's I type up at home. Does that mean I can type up orders to take any MATS plane to anyplace in the world, to any US military base to do any business I specify, all on my own signature?” He said nothing. He just grinned, and gave me a half-wink. I said, “Ahhh -- I got it.” I had just learned something new. But what? I could now legally and properly travel on any military transport to any military base in the world to do anything I specified – but I still wasn't old enough to drive a car outside my driveway. I was only 15. But, I was a fast learner, and there was much more to come.
Not only did I learn to write my own orders, I also typed up and entered all the items which went into my own 201 personnel file. Every person in the military has their own 201 file, full of travel orders, increases in rank, training completed and special commendations, all signed and approved by their commanding officer. One copy remains at the squadron or local military unit and the other copy goes into a file at the national records office in Washington or where ever. Except in the case of the 201 file for Marshall Smith. After the very first pages signed by commanding officer, Major Rozak, noting that I had joined Squadron 114, all the remaining 200 or so pages were written and signed by me. I wondered if anybody else ever did that?
Without telling Rozak, I started to ask around. At one of the monthly California Cadet Council meetings I asked casually had anybody ever heard of cadets writing their own travel orders. Some of the older boys said they occasionally wrote their own orders at the last minute to come to the meetings when they had forgotten to get their commanders to sign it for them. But other than that, no. They didn't want to get caught forging their commander's signature. I asked has anybody ever heard of any cadet filling out his own 201 file? Nope, nobody heard of that, it can't be done. You need the commander's signature to make any entries into the the 201. I asked, “I've heard rumors that some cadet had written his own travel orders to go on MATS aircraft. Had they ever heard of that?” One of the older guys, Captain Dirk, said he had heard that rumor too. I asked, “So who was he? What happened to him? Did he get kicked out or something? What?” Dirk said, he had only heard the rumor, it was several years before, but didn't know the guy's name or what happened to him. Alright, so I had at least confirmed that there was a rumor about some guy, but was it for real? Somebody else before me had been taught some of the same military secrets which Rozak was teaching me. But why and who? I didn't learn the name of that cadet until some ten years later.
Since I was being trained in some non-standard military procedures, I decided I would also teach some non-standard military training classes. Between teaching classes in military protocol, basics of flight, navigation, weather and aircraft engines, I also taught sewing class. Most of the boys complained, “That's girls work, why should we learn sewing?” I said, “When you get in the Air Force and they give you a new uniform, are you gonna call your mommy to sew on all the insignia patches?” “When your sergeant gives you your new stripes to go from Airman Second Class to First Class, and the sergeant says be in uniform in half an hour, are you gonna call your sister from 2,000 miles away to sew on your new stripes?” “To be a man in the Air Force, you need to learn sewing.” Well, that shocked everybody.
About that time, during the introductory class, one of the boys would ask, “Sergent Smith, Sir, did you sew your uniform?” I said, “Whadda ya think? I magically have a body which perfectly fits into a standard issue Air Force uniform? No. They always come one-size-fits-all. The shirts are all inches too wide around the waist, the shoulders and collars don't roll right, the sleeves are too long, the pants crease up over the top of your shoes, and the butt's too baggy. I took this uniform apart, into its 25 components, marked up the changes, and then sewed it all back together. Every stitch and seam you see on this uniform, I sewed myself. Why do you think my uniform looks different from yours? If you wanna look like a sad-sack with a baggy uniform, that's OK with me, but not in this squadron.”
Without much further comment, I had 20 boys and girls aged about 13 and 14, all intently learning their way around needle, thread and thimble. They all had sewing kits and learned how to use them. Actually, I had “cheated” again. My mom was then a Home Economics major at San Jose State, and had taken sewing and tailoring classes. I watched what she did, and I read her tailoring textbook from cover to cover. I had been using her sewing machine for years, but tailoring techniques, I learned by the book, and the rest I taught myself.
Major Rozak had been regular Air Force for many years. He had never seen nor heard of any sewing classes as part of basic airman training, but he didn't say anything at the time. Several weeks later when Squadron 114 stood inspection, and they all looked like they had just stepped out of the Air Force recruiting poster, and their bodies had been poured into their uniforms, then Rozak commented that maybe there was something to Sergent Smith's Sewing Class. The morale and esprit-de-corps in the Squadron shot through the roof. They were all proud to be in an Air Force uniform, and proud to be in Squadron 114. They only had to look at themselves to know why.
I also taught Shoeshine Class. Everybody thought they knew how to shine their shoes. Not so. I had heard rumors that there was a way to shine shoes so they shone and glistened like glassy patent leather. For months, I asked around. Some people had heard the rumor, but nobody knew how it was done, nor even if the rumor were true. I decided to do experiments for myself. I stuck a can of Kiwi black shoe polish on the stove to make the wax warm. It made a gooey mess and the shoeshine was worse than normal temperature wax. That didn't work. It also stunk up the house. I tried baking the wax at low temperature in the oven. This made the wax brittle, and after wearing the shoes for several minutes the shoes looked they had a bad sunburn and all the brittle skin was peeling off, and it stunk up the house even worse. That didn't work. I stuck a new fresh can of Kiwi shoe wax into the freezer. The wax got hard like a black hockey puck.
I got a cotton ball from my mom's cosmetic makeup bag, wet it with ice water and rubbed it on the hard wax in the can. Only a small amount of wax, the size of a pencil point stuck to the cotton. I rubbed that on my shoe. After a minute or so of rubbing, the icy hard wax spread out into a shiny glassy spot the size of a dime. It looked like patent leather! I had discovered, or rediscovered, the “patent leather” shoeshine trick. After four or five hours of rubbing icy cotton balls on my shoes, they had been changed from standard government issue military brogans into “patent leather” dancing shoes that maybe Fred Astaire had just stepped out of. I wore those shoes next week at the Squadron meeting. Those shoes shone like Hollywood search lights. Everybody wanted to know how I did that. Could I teach them how to shine their shoes like that? I told them what equipment they needed to bring, and I would begin to teach Shoeshine Class next week.
This had an immediate but unexpectedly profound effect on the whole Squadron. After teaching the boys and girls how to shine shoes using the “patent leather” secret, I told them go home and complete the process. It may take you many hours over several days. But after you spend six or eight hours on shining your shoes, don't just throw them in the closet. Put them in a paper bag and carefully put them on a high shelf and don't let anybody, but nobody, touch them. And when you put your shoes on, don't scuff them up, or you will have to spend another eight hours just shining them up again.
The next week, Major Rozak looked at the squadron during inspection, and saw 30 cadets looking like Air Force recruitment posters, with shoes that shone like truck headlights. The effect was awesome. But even more, during the break times, the boys didn't go out in the parking lot and play the usual tag or football, or chase the girls or anything like that. No, when you are wearing shoes that you just spent eight hours polishing, you walk around very carefully, like walking on eggs. If anybody starts to horse around, you point to your shoes and say, “No no, I don't want to scuff up my shoes.” The total effect was amazing. Instead of running around like boisterous teenage boys and girls in the pool hall, they all started walking carefully and gracefully, like adult ladies and gentlemen. I didn't give them any pep-rally speeches to boost their morale, I gave them sewing class. I didn't have to yell at them to straighten up and stop horsing around, I gave them shoeshine class. Their behavior and demeanor seemed to be transformed automatically and magically.
Later, Rozak took me aside and said “Here's some Air Force leadership manuals you might want to read.” He mostly never gave me orders or commands, nor even taught me with classes, he just gave me suggestions of something I might want to do. I read the manuals and then I said to him, “I read the leadership manuals, but there's nothing in there about any sewing or shoeshine classes.” He said, “Marshall, some people learn military leadership by the book. Some few people seem to come to it naturally. That's not in the book.” I thought about it, then said, “That means if I just keep doing what I'm doing then... I... could...” I paused, since I just knew he was going to do it again. Yep, he gave a slight grin, tilted his head and gave me a half-wink. I had just come to another great realization. I had learned something. I had learned something about me.
If you have read through this lengthy story to this point, you might think I am just tooting my own horn and bragging. Not so. This story is not about me. It is about that other Civil Air Patrol cadet, who had been trained just like me several years before. I know of only that one other cadet who had been given that special training. Like me, as a young teenager, he became a radio expert and was experienced as a military communication specialist. Like me, as a teenager, he was trained how to write his own Air Force travel orders to enter any military base for any purpose, and all on his own signature. Like me, he was taught how to write, and make entries into his own 201 personnel file. Also like me, he was taught how to jump on any MATS military transport plane and travel to any US airbase in the world. But why?
Who was that man that had been trained just like me? Actually you have already heard of him. But you were lied to about him. I never met him, but I know him by reputation and his special unique training, which was just the same as mine. He was a military mastermind. He could cut through military red tape, and make military magic happen, seemingly out of thin air. He could swim through the US military system, as if it were his own private fishtank. When he became 19, too old to be a cadet, he joined the military. Not just any military, but the ruff-tuff elite Marines. He breezed through basic training, since he had already done it years before. After Marine boot camp, as a Marine private, he was not given a job cleaning military toilets. NO, he was immediately assigned to a clandestine job at Atsugi Naval Airbase in Japan. Based on his extensive experience at a teenage military radio communication expert, he was assigned to monitor Soviet military communications. He reported directly to the Pentagon.
When the Soviets found out that the US was monitoring their classified military communications, they switched to a new complex form of multiple-transmitter systems, which the US could not understand. This man was given the new assignment of “defecting” to the Soviet Union, dressed as a civilian, and got a job at a radio factory in Minsk, looking for the secrets of the new Soviet communication system built into their radios. But you were lied to about his jobs.
You were lied to about this man who had been trained as a military specialist as a very young teenager, just like me. He was Gung-ho pro-American patriot, and more G.I. Joe than Joe himself. When I tell you his name, you will know you have been lied to about all the events in American history for the last 50 years. You have been lied to about all the “wars” for the last 50 years. You have been lied to about the Vietnam war, the wars in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. You have been completely lied to about the “War on Terror.” You have been lied to about the true identity of Louisiana Civil Air Patrol cadet, Lee Harvey Oswald....
Marshall Smith
Editor, Brother Jonathan Gazette
newseditor@brojon.com
To Subscribe to the Daily Digest go here:
http://www.brojon.org/digestform.html
--------------------- END OF PART TWO ------------------
KONFESSIONS OF A KID KOLD-WARRIOR: Part Three
~~~~~ How I Completed CIA Training at Age 16 ~~~~~
It is clear from the spate of recent email, that in this series I am moving ahead too fast. I need to provide some background information to untangle some mis-conceptions. By knowing who Lee Harvey Oswald really was, only proves that the “conspiracy” is too big and America has already lost the game. Trying to “save” America now is too late with too little Wrong.
Many groups are trying to “save” America. Some are called Democrats or some are called Republicans. They each have their own “solutions.” Mostly their solutions look like ways to eliminate the other party. Or they look like ways to foment hatred and dislike of “conservatives” or “liberals.” These are all deceptions and mis-directions to fool you. While both parties, plan their strategy as if it were a game of checkers, the “conspiracy” is playing by the rules of chess. People playing checkers only find their men and strategy simply are disappearing off the board by some unknown rules or means which is mysterious. Maybe that mysterious force is some vast international “conspiracy.” Wrong.
That vast conspiracy, since the early 1960's has consisted of only three men. Occasionally a fourth man is included, but that's to temporarily make up for one of the three who is about to retire. I call this group of three, the American Troika. It is also known as the head of the “Empire of Energy.” It is physically located in the center of the CIA. But the 99.99 percent of dedicated Americans who make up the CIA have no idea of the existence of the American Troika. That includes even the DCI, or Director of Central Intelligence, since he is just a temporary political appointee, he doesn't have a need to know about the Troika. And all of the CIA is run on a “need to know” basis. Most people assume that the CIA is part of some giant conspiracy. Wrong.
You may ask how I know all these things. Don't forget I went through CIA training in 1961. I was never a member of the CIA. That means I have known about the “workings” of the CIA for 46 years. I am probably one of the oldest existing “survivors” of that process. Trust me, it has not been easy at all. I know too much, just as Lee Oswald knew too much. First, some things you need to know.
The American military posture in the world is such that it is divided into three parts. These are (1) Armed Forces, (2) Delta Forces, and (3) Special Forces. In order to understand the “American Troika” you need to know the meanings of those Force names. The news media frequently mixes them all together, since they have no understanding of what the names mean.
The Armed Forces are the “boots on the ground.” They could also be airmen or seaman, but generally these are “regular” military in uniforms who fight “wars.” Unfortunately, since the early 60's their only purpose has been to lose wars. They are a political tool of the American Troika. Their function is to discredit the “party in power” and the President of the United States. They make the President look like a fool or a boob for having sent them, and then when there are many thousands of American casualties, the President looks stupid. This was used in Vietnam, Bosnia and Panama to change political opinion polls. Anybody in the Pentagon, who has been to War College, knows that to win wars, don't use (1) Armed Forces. To win a war, use very small (2) Delta Forces or (3) Special Forces.
Delta Forces have had many names since World War II. These are highly trained military specialists. They have been called Commandos, Snipers, Green Berets, or even Rapid Reaction Forces, plus many other names. These are all regular military in uniforms. The news media completely confuses them with Special Forces. Wrong.
The Special Forces are all ex-military with five to ten years of military training and experience. They all have shown amazing skills and talents in the military. But they have left the military and are now civilians working in civilian clothing. They work for the CIA. They no longer have any connection to the military nor the Pentagon. A three-man team of Special Forces can take over a whole country or nation. But how? What are those special skills and talents, which caused them to be hand-picked out of the military?
Special Forces teams, enroll thousands of local civilians in a target country, and train them as a local militia. The local militia becomes an army which can undermine and overthrow a nation. The Special Forces teams also supply the local militias with millions of dollars of military supplies and uniforms to build and arm the local armies. One major purpose of the local militias is to be a widespread collector of intelligence on the “enemy.” Those last two functions are why the Special Forces can only exist under the CIA.
If it were discovered in Congress or the news media that Special Forces were supplying 500 million dollars to some local militia in a foreign country, then obviously the US is “at war” against that country. But neither Congress nor the President has declared any war against that country. And neither President nor Congress knows about any 500 million dollars, since it is hidden inside the CIA's “black budget” which is not reported to the news media, President nor Congress. That's why Special Forces come under the CIA, and under the control of the American Troika. Nobody else has a “need to know.” When Special Forces are deployed, it only looks like a civil war between local rebels and the government forces in some country. There is no hint of American involvement.
So what are those amazing military skills that Special Forces need to have? They need to have excellent leadership skills, since they need to build and lead an army of local militias, and build it out of nothing. They need to have charismatic skills which “enroll” people into their militias. They also need to be artful teachers, who can train the local militias in the ways of warfare. They also need to be tactful diplomats, since they work with high level politicians in the opposition government parties. They also need to be fluent in the language of that country. Those last two skills could be obtained during the Special Forces training at Fort Ord, from the nearby Defense Language Institute at the Monterey Presidio, a mere several miles down the road from Fort Ord.
But the excellent in-born skills which the military men needed to bring to the training were, Leadership, Enrollment, and Teaching. That may be a clue as to how I got into that training in 1961. At 16, I had already demonstrated competence in all those areas.
I had shown that I could take a group of teenagers and lead them to become an outstanding military unit of the Air Force. I knew enrollment, but by another name. We never had an enrollment program or collared anybody to “enroll” them in Squadron 114. I taught Sewing and Shoeshine Class. That turned a buncha teenagers into a proud squadron of the CAP, and they told their friends at school about this “neat group” they belong to. And each week, several high school kids wandered in off the street and wanted to find out what's going on, and could they join up. By the end of the year, we had grown from 10 to nearly 100 cadets, now that's “enrollment” and it was done effortlessly.
I was also some kind of “strange” teacher. I seemed to teach in some engaging way that almost all my students got 100 percent on the tests. And I even made up my own classes, like Sewing and Shoeshine Class and several others I created, which weren't in any military training manuals. But those classes turned out to be the most engaging and rewarding classes for my cadet students. And I was only 16.
I have no idea how I got into that training program at Fort Ord. Many months earlier my CAP commanding officer, Major Rozak, had taught me about “natural born leaders” and it's not found any Air Force Leadership manuals. He might have found about this advanced “leadership” training program at Fort Ord, or something. Maybe he didn't know what the training program was either. I don't know. But it seemed to be for civilians with military experience, so I qualified. He only told me, “Marshall, there's a training program at Fort Ord you might want to take.” That's all he ever told me. Just a suggestion of something I might want to do. In the past, that usually meant, I do it, then later he grins and half-winks then I learn something profound. That happened in this case also.
I had just formed the Squadron 114 Drill Team. I had 18 men who had passed Sewing and Shoeshine Class. I showed up at Fort Ord, marching ten of my boys into the training area looking like Air Force recruiting posters. I had practiced drilling my team in a large parking lot, and I practiced giving commands from the other end of the parking lot. After six months of that, I had a command voice, which, if I got in your face nose-to-nose, and started barking commands at you, I could peel the skin off your face. I also had a hand-made uniform which only high ranking military officers wore.
When I got to the Fort Ord training arena and saw those 60 or so “old men” wearing civilian clothes, but with pieces of uniforms sticking out here and there, I wondered “Who the hell are these guys?” I am sure those “old men” must have looked at us, wearing tailored uniforms and all in “patent leather” combat boots, and wondered, “Who the hell are these guys?” Well, our instructor, Army Captain, Harker, never explained. It must be just some strange part of the training.
Later, in one of the lessons on the afternoon of the first day, Capt. Harker, held up an M-1 Carbine, and asked, “Does anybody know how to....?” Before he finished the question, I had raised my hand and said, “I can Sir.” I knew that weapon inside and out and could probably do anything he asked. He wanted a demonstration of how to disassemble and reassemble the rifle. I stood at attention and said, “Sir, I can disassemble and reassemble the M-1, blindfolded and all in less than 60 seconds.” That was unheard off.
I did the demonstration is such an amazing way that all the crusty “old guys” in the audience, including Capt. Harker, started clapping and cheering. Little did I know at the time, that this was a class in how to teach small arms to local militias in South Vietnam. I am sure that from 1961 to 1964, before the American boots hit the ground in Nam, the Special Forces units were teaching thousands of local Vietnamese village militiamen how to disassemble, clean, and reassemble their rifles all in less than 60 seconds. Or at least they tried to. The Special Forces instructors knew how to do it. They knew it could be done. They had seen it demonstrated in their training class. Thanks to Sergeant Smith, of the Civil Air Patrol, Composite Squadron 114, who was only 16 at the time....
--------------------- END OF PART THREE ------------------
-- BROTHER JONATHAN GAZETTE
