White Sands 1984

I was ranked 20th in my class after the first year at the US Naval Academy (class of ’78) – a mechanical engineering major in one of the US Marine Corps companies, no less. Captain Hodory, my CO, was a real hard-ass; he prided himself on awarding more demerits than any other company commander in the Brigade. Think Navy SEALS training for a whole year.

They promised me a year at the US Air Force Academy as an exchange student. Then my roommate’s parents came down for Parents Weekend on spring break and took Morry Ray and me out to dinner. Turns out the place was outside the seven-mile limit, and we got charged with a Class A violation – 75 demerits.  Captain Hodory wanted to charge us another 75 demerits each for drinking Grog, but I said, “If you’re outside the seven-mile limit, there’s no penalty for drinking.”

He dropped the 2nd Class A.  And canceled my year at the Air Force Academy.

I resigned a year later.  I got seasick on the calmest seas, airsick in a trainer jet at Pensacola, max claustrophobia on a submarine, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to join the Marines.

The NASA Letter

I finished my BSME at the University of Texas, worked for Exxon as a drilling engineer, and quit a few months after they promoted me into exploration drilling. Too much stress.  Six months later, back home in Austin taking classes at Texas, I had a brilliant new idea: model the solar system with a single wave function that explained the orbits of all the planets.

I built this function into a whole “Star Wars” kind of technology, right on down to a model of the atom.  I wrote it up in a manuscript, sent copies to TAB Books and other publishers, and also to NASA.  They wrote back:

“Your work was reviewed by both an engineer and a scientist.  They both agreed. Your concepts about the Unified Field Theory appear to be so profound as to be years ahead of the current scientific thinking in the areas in which you delved.”

I hustled around to different labs in the Austin area, traveling around the county, trying to drum up some interest in my tech. Ended up homeless on the streets of Minneapolis.  After a few weeks of that misery, I took the ASVAB test at the local US Army recruiting office. My scores were so good they gave me the choice of any MOS at the duty station of my choice.  I asked for 93E Weather Observer at White Sands Missile Range, ground zero of the US space effort.

The High Energy Laser Project

I bought an Apple IIE computer and refined my solar system model, working the night shift at C station. The folks in the barracks called me “the professor.”  I went to HELSTAF with Dr. Hines from the Atmospheric Sciences Laboratory (ASL) one time.  I had a Secret classification from Annapolis plus an engineering degree.  We took a giant particle counter – basically a high-tech vacuum cleaner – to measure the particle count inside the laser lab (giant lenses, mirrors, and a wall of giant computers). Can’t have any dust motes in the air to ZAP the laser beam.

The parking lot was full to capacity. And I remember thinking: where are all the people? Because Dr. Hines and I didn’t see a living soul.  Honestly, the laser lab seemed fake, too, like a movie set from Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.  “This is Ronald Regan’s $1 trillion “Star Wars” laser project?  More like a $1 trillion waste of taxpayers' money.”

I showed the NASA manuscript to Dr. Hines. He recommended I talk to the head of ASL, LTC Ellis.  I met with Ellis, showed him the NASA manuscript, and showed him my little business card wallet with all the companies I had lobbied before enlisting.  He was not interested.

I left my business card wallet in Ellis’ office and later asked for it back.  He wouldn’t return it.

HELSTAF or HELL STAFF

My roommate, E4 Ken Barkman, sent the NASA letter to the post commander after that, MG Niles Fulwyler (two stars), saying, “You HAVE to see this guy’s ideas.”  The general set up a formal seminar with the senior scientists from HELSTAF.

The last poster in our presentation was a colorful faster-than-light Star Wars-esque fighter jet.  (That was the theme of the NASA manuscript.)  I thought it was kind of fun.  In retrospect, I don’t think they interpreted it that way.

Ten days later, LTC Ellis ordered me to see the post psychiatrist, Capt Mark Chapin, for an evaluation.  Schizophrenia.  Captain Chapin said I was fine, that Ellis was just jealous I’d spent two hours with the post commander, whom he’d hardly ever met.

Not long after that, I was in El Paso getting computer supplies.  I got an urgent summons when I arrived at the store (I mean, who even knew where I was going to?). Return to post ASAP and report to the Military Police.

The MPs accused me of trying to defect. (One of the business cards in the wallet was from Nathan Belkind at the Israeli embassy in Washington, DC.)  They read me the riot act.  I was incensed: this is MY research, done on MY computer, in MY free time: you have no right.

(Excuse me, but if Ellis thought my tech was psycho – why was he worried about me defecting?  Assuming all this was coming from Ellis, and not the higher-ups.)

A few weeks later, driving back to the barracks from C Station, my motorcycle was totaled – with me on it. My wheels were wrecked, but I was okay.

I purchased a used Fiat Brava at the White Sands Federal Credit Union on post.  Half a mile off the lot, the engine blew. I spent the rest of my time on post rebuilding the engine and transmission in the Auto Craft Shop on post.

That’s one way to keep me from defecting: destroy my wheels.

The Sh*t hits the fans

I won’t deny being uber stressed out at this point.  I’d always been peeved that the guys smoking pot in our common bathroom upset me.  Hate that smell.  The reefer smoke was so thick at times; if they’d given me a urinalysis test, I’d come back positive. “But sir, I didn’t inhale.”

It happened again and, well, I lost it.  I turned them all in.  They found me out. Threatened me.  I was relieved of duty and put to work building picnic tables in the barracks area.  Then all the urinalysis tests came back positive.  I got an ARCOM.

According to the UCMJ, I should have been transferred immediately.  My Fiat Brava still didn’t run.  Eventually, I got an “Eyes Only” transfer to Fort Sam Houston.  I was assigned to the Main Post Chapel, waiting for orders to chaplain’s assistant school. I had designs on becoming a Chaplain. The academic and professional standards for Chaplains are the toughest of any office in the military.

BAMC psych ward

I filed a statement with the Inspector General’s at Fort Sam Houston.  He immediately had me hospitalized at Chambers Pavilion, a charming building in the BAMC complex. My boss, the Chief of Chaplains, Col. Sanders, testified at my tribunal a year later that Dr. Durand-Hollis, the Chief of Psychiatry, had already decided that I was “the sickest of the sick” and was determined to prove this.

Their only “evidence” against me was the NASA manuscript, which they said was proof positive of severe chronic paranoid schizophrenia (my official diagnosis).  I wrote rebuttals to the psychiatrist’s and psychologist’s evaluations that basically said everything in their observations and other notes was a total lie.

I spent six months with my JAG lawyer, Capt. Paul Franco, preparing for the tribunal.  They usually last fifteen minutes. Mine lasted three hours. I was under rough cross-examination the whole time.  Ultimately, the Board decided that the NASA research – we submitted half a dozen letters from highly regarded scientists – wasn’t a “grandiose delusion.”

Too late.  I went home and burned everything. Every. Last. Shred.  Four solid years of work, up in smoke.  I got so depressed, I attempted suicide.

While I was hospitalized at Rusk State Hospital in Texas, I missed a disability review with the VA. They automatically reduced my rating from 10% to 0%.

The Szebehely factor

It took me ten years to even THINK about all that NASA tech again.  By this time I was a consulting engineer in Austin with an excellent reputation. The NASA letter was framed in my little work cubicle all this time – nagging me.

I wrote a couple of tentative letters to Victor Szebehely at the University of Texas across town. Turns out, he was a very important person in celestial mechanics.  It’s quite remarkable that he even wrote back to me.  But he did.  Several times.

Then in the spring of 1997, I took Dr. Szebehely’s graduate class on Regularization (eliminating variables from scientific models – exactly what my solar system model was about).  I redid all my research in a spreadsheet and presented the NASA research as a class project.

Dr. Szebehely absolutely loved my “Inverse Problem of Celestial Mechanics” presentation.  “All you need to do is add time to your analysis, and you’ll get your name lit up in lights.” He encouraged me to go to grad school and wrote a nice letter of recommendation.

Bottom Line: My presentation at WSMR was spot on.  Pure genius.  Revolutionary…

I started classes at Texas that fall.  Unfortunately, Dr. Szebehely passed away shortly after classes started.  My new advisor was Roger Broucke, also a very famous worker in celestial mechanics. The story of what happened after that is a whole ‘other big, giant cluster f*ck.

I chose a very conventional research topic: a computer model of the Mars trajectory.  Unfortunately, I solved the “holy grail” of orbital mechanics of the day.  They ran me off, and Cesar Ocampo stole my research to create the Copernicus software application, NASA’s go-to app for trajectory analysis.

The facts are actually quite clear.  The reason is less clear.  The schizophrenic in me (I have been rated 100% ever since Texas expelled me) has a nagging suspicion:  everything was going hunky dory until I submitted a biography in Wallace Fowler’s space mission design class, explaining the fiasco at White Sands.

OMG. This is the effing White Sands whistleblower. We CANNOT let this man get a PhD.  Steal his research. Run him off. Break every rule in the book. Lie. Steal. Cheat. JUST GET IT DONE.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

I was expelled with extreme malice right after 9/11, following three years of constant – exponentially increasing - grief.  During which time I was grateful for the horrors at BAMC because they prepared me for the absolute worst. Exactly what happened, supported by 50+ official documents, is a separate post. However -

This time it took me 25 years to get my senses back.  And here I am wondering: what the F is going on?