Law 2 of the 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene; Never put too much trust in friends, learn how to use enemies

Well, this book has quite a bit of controversy associated with it, but most of it stems from reviewers that believe all people are good inside and unicorns deliver their vegan low fat cappuccino with cream.

Well, most people aren’t kind, and this book prepared you for reality.

It doesn’t teach one to be self absorbed or evil or a heretic.

It teaches one to stand your ground and to protect yourself from taking unnecessary burden, unfair treatment, and manipulation from corrupt people.

LAW 2

NEVER PUT TOO MUCH TRUST IN FRIENDS, LEARN HOW TO USE ENEMIES

JUDGMENT

Be wary of friends—they will betray you more quickly, for they are easily aroused to envy. They also become spoiled and tyrannical. But hire a former enemy and he will be more loyal than a friend, because he has more to prove. In fact, you have more to fear from friends than from enemies. If you have no enemies, find a way to make them.

TRANSGRESSION OF THE LAW

In the mid-ninth century A.D., a young man named Michael III assumed the throne of the Byzantine Empire.

His mother, the Empress Theodora, had been banished to a nunnery, and her lover, Theoctistus, had been murdered ; at the head of the conspiracy to depose Theodora and enthrone Michael had been Michael’s uncle, Bardas, a man of intelligence and ambition.

Michael was now a young, inexperienced ruler, surrounded by in triguers, murderers, and profligates. In this time of peril he needed someone he could trust as his councilor, and his thoughts turned to Basilius, his best friend.

Basilius had no experience whatsoever in government and politics—in fact, he was the head of the royal stables—but he had proven his love and gratitude time and again.

To have a good enemy, choose a friend: He knows where to strike. 

-DIANF DE POITIERS. 1499-1566. MISTRESS OF HENRI II OF FRANCE

They had met a few years before, when Michael had been visiting the stables just as a wild horse got loose.

Basilius, a young groom from peasant Macedonian stock, had saved Michael’s life.

The groom’s strength and courage had impressed Michael, who immediately raised Basilius from the obscurity of being a horse trainer to the position of head of the stables.

He loaded his friend with gifts and favors and they became inseparable.

Basilius was sent to the finest school in Byzantium, and the crude peasant became a cultured and sophisticated courtier.

Every time I bestow a vacant office I make a hundred discontented persons and one ingrate.

Louis XIV, 1638-1715

Now Michael was emperor, and in need of someone loyal.

Who could he better trust with the post of chamberlain and chief councilor than a young man who owed him everything?

Basilius could be trained for the job and Michael loved him like a brother.

Ignoring the advice of those who recommended the much more qualified Bardas, Michael chose his friend.

Thus for my own part l have more than once been deceived by the person I loved most and of whose love, above everyone else’s, I have been most confident. So that I believe that u may be right to love and serve one person above all others. according to merit and worth, but never to trust so much in this tempting trap of friendship as to have cause to repent of it later on. 

BALDASSARE CASTIGLIONE, 1478-1529

Basilius learned well and was soon advising the emperor on all matters of state.

The only problem seemed to be money—Basiiius never had enough.

Exposure to the splendor of Byzantine court life made him avaricious for the perks of power.

Michael doubled, then tripled his salary, ennobled him, and married him off to his own mistress, Eudoxia Ingerina.

Keeping such a trusted friend and adviser satisfied was worth any price.

But more trouble was to come.

Bardas was now head of the army, and Basilius convinced Michael that the man was hopelessly ambitious.

Under the illusion that he could control his nephew, Bardas had conspired to put him on the throne, and he could conspire again, this time to get rid of Michael and assume the crown himself.

Basilius poured poison into Michael’s ear until the emperor agreed to have his uncle murdered.

During a great horse race, Basilius closed in on Bardas in the crowd and stabbed him to death.

Soon after, Basilius asked that he replace Bardas as head of the army, where he could keep control of the realm and quell rebellion.

This was granted.

Now Basilius’s power and wealth only grew, and a few years later Michael, in financial straits from his own extravagance, asked him to pay back some of the money he had borrowed over the years.

To Michael’s shock and astonishment, Basilius refused, with a look of such impudence that the emperor suddenly realized his predicament: The former stable boy had more money, more allies in the army and senate, and in the end more power than the emperor himself.

A few weeks later, after a night of heavy drinking,

Michael awoke to find himself surrounded by soldiers.

Basilius watched as they stabbed the emperor to death.

Then, after proclaiming himself emperor, he rode his horse through the streets of Byzantium, brandishing the head of his former benefactor and best friend at the end of a long pike.

THE SNAKE. THE FARMER. AND THE HERON

A snake chased by hunters asked a farmer to save its life. 

To hide it from its pursuers, the farmer squatted and let the snake crawl into his belly.

But when the danger had passed and the farmer asked the snake to come out, the snake refused.

It was warm and safe inside.

On his way home, the man saw a heron and went up to him and whispered what had happened.

The heron told him to squat and strain to eject the snake.

When the snake snuck its head out, the heron caught it, pulled it out, and killed it.

The farmer was worried that the snake’s poison might still be inside him, and the heron told him that the cure for snake poison was to cook and eat six white fowl.

“You’re a white fowl,” said the farmer. “You’ll do for a start.”

He grabbed the heron, put it in a bag, and carried it home, where he hung it up while he told his wife what had happened.

“I’m surprised
at you, ” said the wife. “The bird does you a kindness, rids you of the evil in your belly, saves your life in fact, yet you catch it and talk of killing it."

She immediately released the heron, and it flew away. But on its way, it gouged out her eyes.


Moral: When you see water flowing uphill, it means that someone is repaying a kindness.

AFRICAN FOLK TALE

Interpretation

Michael III staked his future on the sense of gratitude he thought Basilius must feel for him.

Surely Basilius would serve him best; he owed the emperor his wealth, his education, and his position.

Then, once Basilius was in power, anything he needed it was best to give to him, strengthening the bonds between the two men.

It was only on the fateful day when the emperor saw that impudent smile on Basilius’s face that he realized his deadly mistake.

He had created a monster.

He had allowed a man to see power up close— a man who then wanted more, who asked for anything and got it, who felt encumbered by the charity he had received and simply did what many people do in such a situation: They forget the favors they have received and imagine they have earned their success by their own merits.

At Michael’s moment of realization, he could still have saved his own life, but friendship and love blind every man to their interests. Nobody believes a friend can betray.

And Michael went on disbelieving until the day his head ended up on a pike.

Lord, protect me from my friends; I can take care of my enemies.

Voltaire, 1694-1778

OBSERVANCE OF THE LAW

For several centuries after the fall of the Han Dynasty (A.D. 222), Chinese history followed the same pattern of violent and bloody coups, one after the other.

Army men would plot to kill a weak emperor, then would replace him on the Dragon Throne with a strong general.

The general would start a new dynasty and crown himself emperor; to ensure his own survival he would kill off his fellow generals.

A few years later, however, the pattern would resume: New generals would rise up and assassinate him or his sons in their turn. To be emperor of China was to be alone, surrounded by a pack of enemies—it was the least powerful, least secure position in the realm.

In A.D. 959, General Chao K’uang-yin became Emperor Sung.

He knew the odds, the probability that within a year or two he would be murdered ; how could he break the pattern?

Soon after becoming emperor, Sung ordered a banquet to celebrate the new dynasty, and invited the most powerful commanders in the army.

After they had drunk much wine, he dismissed the guards and everybody else except the generals, who now feared he would murder them in one fell swoop.

Instead, he addressed them:

“The whole day is spent in fear, and I am unhappy both at the table and in my bed. For which one of you does not dream of ascending the throne? I do not doubt your allegiance, but if by some chance your subordinates, seeking wealth and position, were to force the emperor’s yellow robe upon you in turn, how could you refuse it?” 

Drunk and fearing for their lives, the generals proclaimed their innocence and their loyalty.

But Sung had other ideas:

“The best way to pass one’s days is in peaceful enjoyment of riches and honor. 

If you are willing to give up your commands, I am ready to provide you with fine estates and beautiful dwellings where you may take your pleasure with singers and girls as your companions.”

The astonished generals realized that instead of a life of anxiety and struggle Sung was offering them riches and security.

The next day, all of the generals tendered their resignations, and they retired as nobles to the estates that Sung bestowed on them.

There are manv who think therefore that a wise prince ought, when he has the chance, to foment astutely some enmity, so that by suppressing It he will augment his greatness. Princes, and especially new ones, have found more faith and more usefulness in those men, whom at the beginning of their power they regarded with suspicion, than in those they at first confided in. Pandolfo Petrucci, prince of Siena, governed his state more bv those whom he suspected than by others.

Niccoi o MACHIAVELLI, 1469-1527

In one stroke, Sung turned a pack of “friendly” wolves, who would likely have betrayed him, into a group of docile lambs, far from all power.

Over the next few years Sung continued his campaign to secure his rule.

In A.D. 971, King Liu of the Southern Han finally surrendered to him after years of rebellion.

To Liu’s astonishment, Sung gave him a rank in the imperial court and invited him to the palace to seal their newfound friendship with wine.

As King Liu took the glass that Sung offered him, he hesitated, fearing it contained poison.

“Your subject’s crimes certainly merit death,” he cried out, “but I beg Your Majesty to spare your subject’s life. Indeed I dare not drink this wine.”

Emperor Sung laughed, took the glass from Liu, and swallowed it himself. There was no poison. From then on Liu became his most trusted and loyal friend.

At the time, China had splintered into many smaller kingdoms.

When Ch‘ien Shu, the king of one of these, was defeated, Sung’s ministers advised the emperor to lock this rebel up.

They presented documents proving that he was still conspiring to kill Sung.

When Ch’ien Shu came to visit the emperor, however, instead of locking him up, Sung honored him.

He also gave him a package, which he told the former king to open when he was halfway home.

Ch’ien Shu opened the bundle on his return journey and saw that it contained all the papers documenting his conspiracy.

He realized that Sung knew of his murderous plans, yet had spared him nonetheless.

This generosity won him over, and he too became one of Sung’s most loyal vassals.

A brahman, a great expert in Veda who has become a great archer as well, offers his services to his good friend, who is now the king. 

The brahman cries out when he sees the king, “Recognize me, your friend!”

The king answers him with contempt and then explains: “Yes, we were friends before, but our friendship was based on what power we had.... I was friends with you, good brahman, because it served my purpose. No pauper is friend to the rich, no fool to the wise, no coward to the brave. An old friend
who needs him? It is two men of equal wealth and equal birth who contract friendship and marriage, not a rich man and a pauper.... An old friendwho needs him?

THE MAHABHARATA, C. THIRD CENTURY B.C.

Interpretation

A Chinese proverb compares friends to the jaws and teeth of a dangerous animal: If you are not careful, you will find them chewing you up.

Emperor Sung knew the jaws he was passing between when he assumed the throne:

His “friends” in the army would chew him up like meat, and if he somehow survived, his “friends” in the government would have him for supper.

Emperor Sung would have no truck with “friends”—he bribed his fellow generals with splendid estates and kept them far away.

This was a much better way to emasculate them than killing them, which would only have led other generals to seek vengeance.

And Sung would have nothing to do with “friendly” ministers.

More often than not, they would end up drinking his famous cup of poisoned wine.

Instead of relying on friends, Sung used his enemies, one after the other, transforming them into far more reliable subjects.

While a friend expects more and more favors, and seethes with jealousy, these former enemies expected nothing and got everything.

A man suddenly spared the guillotine is a grateful man indeed, and will go to the ends of the earth for the man who has pardoned him.

In time, these former enemies became Sung’s most trusted friends.

Pick up a bee from kindness, and learn the limitations of kindness.

SUFI PROVERB

And Sung was finally able to break the pattern of coups, violence, and civil war—the Sung Dynasty ruled China for more than three hundred years.

In a speech Abraham Lincoln delivered at the height of the Civil War, he referred to the Southerners as fellow human beings who were in error. An elderly lady chastised him for not calling them irreconcilable enemies who must be destroyed. “Why, madam,” Lincoln replied,

“do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?”

KEYS TO POWER

It is natural to want to employ your friends when you find yourself in times of need. The world is a harsh place, and your friends soften the harshness. Besides, you know them. Why depend on a stranger when you have a friend at hand?

Men are more ready to repay an injury than a benefit, because gratitude is a burden and revenge a pleasure.

TACITUS, c. A.D. 55-120

The problem is that you often do not know your friends as well as you imagine.

Friends often agree on things in order to avoid an argument.

They cover up their unpleasant qualities so as to not offend each other.

They laugh extra hard at each other’s jokes.

Since honesty rarely strengthens friendship, you may never know how a friend truly feels.

Friends will say that they love your poetry, adore your music, envy your taste in clothes— maybe they mean it, often they do not.

When you decide to hire a friend, you gradually discover the qualities he or she has kept hidden.

Strangely enough, it is your act of kindness that unbalances everything.

People want to feel they deserve their good fortune.

The receipt of a favor can become oppressive: It means you have been chosen because you are a friend, not necessarily because you are deserving.

There is almost a touch of condescension in the act of hiring friends that secretly afflicts them.

The injury will come out slowly: A little more honesty, flashes of resentment and envy here and there, and before you know it your friendship fades.

The more favors and gifts you supply to revive the friendship, the less gratitude you receive.

Ingratitude has a long and deep history.

It has demonstrated its powers for so many centuries, that it is truly amazing that people continue to underestimate them.

Better to be wary.

If you never expect gratitude from a friend, you will be pleasantly surprised when they do prove grateful.

The problem with using or hiring friends is that it will inevitably limit your power.

The friend is rarely the one who is most able to help you; and in the end, skill and competence are far more important than friendly feelings. (Michael III had a man right under his nose who would have steered him right and kept him alive: That man was Bardas.)

PLUTARCH

King Hiero chanced upon a time, speaking with one of his enemies, to be told in a reproachful manner that he had stinking breath. 

Whereupon the good king, being somewhat dismayed in himself, as soon as he returned home chided his wife, “How does it happen that you never told me of this problem?”

The woman, being a simple, chaste. and harmless dame, said, “Sir, l had thought all men breath had smelled so.”

Thus it is plain that faults that are evident to the senses, gross and corporal, or otherwise notorious to the world, we know by our enemies sooner than by our friends and familiars.


PLUTARCH, C. A.D. 46-120

All working situations require a kind of distance between people.

You are trying to work, not make friends; friendliness (real or false) only obscures that fact.

The key to power, then, is the ability to judge who is best able to further your interests in all situations.

Keep friends for friendship, but work with the skilled and competent.

Your enemies, on the other hand, are an untapped gold mine that you must learn to exploit.

When Talleyrand, Napoleon’s foreign minister, decided in 1807 that his boss was leading France to ruin, and the time had come to turn against him, he understood the dangers of conspiring against the emperor; he needed a partner, a confederate—what friend could he trust in such a project?

He chose Joseph Fouché, head of the secret police, his most hated enemy, a man who had even tried to have him assassinated.

He knew that their former hatred would create an opportunity for an emotional reconciliation.

He knew that Fouché would expect nothing from him, and in fact would work to prove that he was worthy of Talleyrand’s choice; a person who has something to prove will move mountains for you.

Finally, he knew that his relationship with Fouché would be based on mutual self- interest, and would not be contaminated by personal feeling.

The selection proved perfect; although the conspirators did not succeed in toppling Napoleon, the union of such powerful but unlikely partners generated much interest in the cause; opposition to the emperor slowly began to spread.

And from then on, Talleyrand and Fouché had a fruitful working relationship.

Whenever you can, bury the hatchet with an enemy, and make a point of putting him in your service.

As Lincoln said, you destroy an enemy when you make a friend of him.

In 1971, during the Vietnam War, Henry Kissinger was the target of an unsuccessful kidnapping attempt, a conspiracy involving, among others, the renowned antiwar activist priests the Berrigan brothers, four more Catholic priests, and four nuns.

In private, without informing the Secret Service or the Justice Department, Kissinger arranged a Saturday-morning meeting with three of the alleged kidnappers.

Explaining to his guests that he would have most American soldiers out of Vietnam by mid-1972, he completely charmed them.

They gave him some “Kidnap Kissinger” buttons and one of them remained a friend of his for years, visiting him on several occasions.

This was not just a onetime ploy: Kissinger made a policy of working with those who disagreed with him.

Colleagues commented that he seemed to get along better with his enemies than with his friends.

Without enemies around us, we grow lazy.

An enemy at our heels sharpens our wits, keeping us focused and alert.

It is sometimes better, then, to use enemies as enemies rather than transforming them into friends or allies.

Mao Tse-tung saw conflict as key in his approach to power.

In 1937 the Japanese invaded China, interrupting the civil war between Mao’s Communists and their enemy, the Nationalists.

Fearing that the Japanese would wipe them out, some Communist leaders advocated leaving the Nationalists to fight the Japanese, and using the time to recuperate.

Mao disagreed: The Japanese could not possibly defeat and occupy a vast country like China for long.

Once they left, the Communists would have grown rusty if they had been out of combat for several years, and would be ill prepared to reopen their struggle with the Nationalists.

To fight a formidable foe like the Japanese, in fact, would be the perfect training for the Communists’ ragtag army.

Mao’s plan was adopted, and it worked: By the time the Japanese finally retreated, the Communists had gained the fighting experience that helped them defeat the Nationalists.

Years later, a Japanese visitor tried to apologize to Mao for his country’s invasion of China.

Mao interrupted, “Should I not thank you instead?” Without a worthy opponent, he explained, a man or group cannot grow stronger.

Mao’s strategy of constant conflict has several key components.

First, be certain that in the long run you will emerge victorious. Never pick a fight with someone you are not sure you can defeat, as Mao knew the Japanese would be defeated in time.

Second, if you have no apparent enemies, you must sometimes set up a convenient target, even turning a friend into an enemy. Mao used this tactic time and again in politics.

Third, use such enemies to define your cause more clearly to the public, even framing it as a struggle of good against evil. Mao actually encouraged China’s disagreements with the Soviet Union and the United States; without clear- cut enemies, he believed, his people would lose any sense of what Chinese Communism meant. A sharply defined enemy is a far stronger argument for your side than all the words you could possibly put together.

Never let the presence of enemies upset or distress you—you are far better off with a declared opponent or two than not knowing where your real enemies lie.

The man of power welcomes conflict, using enemies to enhance his reputation as a surefooted fighter who can be relied upon in times of uncertainty.

Image: The Jaws of Ingratitude. Knowing what would happen if you put a finger in the mouth of a lion, you would stay clear of it. With friends you will have no such caution, and if you hire them, they will eat you alive with ingratitude.

Authority:

Know how to use enemies for your own profit. You must learn to grab a sword not by its blade, which would cut you, but by the handle, which allows you to defend yourself. The wise man profits more from his enemies, than a fool from his friends. 

(Baltasar Gracián, 1601-1658)

REVERSAL

Although it is generally best not to mix work with friendship, there are times when a friend can be used to greater effect than an enemy.

A man of power, for example, often has dirty work that has to be done, but for the sake of appearances it is generally preferable to have other people do it for him; friends often do this the best, since their affection for him makes them willing to take chances.

Also, if your plans go awry for some reason, you can use a friend as a convenient scapegoat.

This “fall of the favorite” was a trick often used by kings and sovereigns: They would let their closest friend at court take the fall for a mistake, since the public would not believe that they would deliberately sacrifice a friend for such a purpose.

Of course, after you play that card, you have lost your friend forever.

It is best, then, to reserve the scapegoat role for someone who is close to you but not too close.

Finally, the problem about working with friends is that it confuses the boundaries and distances that working requires.

But if both partners in the arrangement understand the dangers involved, a friend often can be employed to great effect.

You must never let your guard down in such a venture, however; always be on the lookout for any signs of emotional disturbance such as envy and ingratitude.

Nothing is stable in the realm of power, and even the closest of friends can be transformed into the worst of enemies.

Conclusion

I know that I have been pumping out China and 48 Laws of Power posts all week long, but I have a backlog that has accumulated with all the historical events of the last few months. Never the less, all these laws are great reading. Perhaps if you read a law here, and a law there, you can absorb the teachings in a slow and leisurely pace and generate benefit from them at your own speed, and on your own terms.

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Law 33 – Discover each mans thumbscrew (full text) from the 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene

This is the complete full text of law #33 titled “Discover each man’s thumbscrew” which is found in the book by Robert Greene titled “The 48 Laws of Power”.

LAW 33

DISCOVER EACH MAN’S THUMBSCREW

JUDGMENT

Everyone has a weakness, a gap in the castle wall. That weakness is usually an insecurity, an uncontrollable emotion or need; it can also be a small secret pleasure. Either way, once found, it is a thumbscrew you can turn to your advantage.

FINDING THE THUMBSCREW: A Strategic Plan of Action

We all have resistances. We live with a perpetual armor around ourselves to defend against change and the intrusive actions of friends and rivals. We would like nothing more than to be left to do things our own way. Constantly butting up against these resistances will cost you a lot of energy. One of the most important things to realize about people, though, is that they all have a weakness, some part of their psychological armor that will not resist, that will bend to your will if you find it and push on it. Some people wear their weaknesses openly, others disguise them. Those who disguise them are often the ones most effectively undone through that one chink in their armor.

THE LION. THE CHAMOIS. AND THE FOX

A lion was chasing a chamois along a valley. 

He had all but caught it, and with longing eyes was anticipating a certain and a satisfying repast.

It seemed as if it were utterly impossible for the victim to escape; for a deep ravine appeared to bar the way for both the hunter and the hunted.

But the nimble chamois, gathering together all its strength, shot like an arrow from a bow across the chasm, and stood still on the rocky cliff on the other side.

Our lion pulled up short.

But at that moment a friend of his happened to be near at hand. That friend was the fox. “What!” said he, “with your strength and agility, is it possible that you will yield to a feeble chamois?

You have only to will, and you will be able to work wonders.

Though the abyss be deep, yet, if you are only in earnest, I am certain you will clear it.

Surely you can confide in my disinterested friendship.

I would not expose your life to danger if I were not so well aware of your strength and dexterity. ”

The lion’s blood waxed hot, and began to boil in his veins.

He flung himself with all his might into space.

But he could not clear the chasm; so down he tumbled headlong, and was killed by the fall.

Then what did his dear friend do?

He cautiously made his way down to the bottom of the ravine. and there, out in the open space and the free air, seeing that the lion wanted neither flattery nor obedience now, he set to work to pay the last sad rites to his dead friend, and in a month picked his bones clean.

FABLES, IVAN KRILOFF, 1768-1844

In planning your assault, keep these principles in mind:

Pay Attention to Gestures and Unconscious Signals. As Sigmund Freud remarked, “No mortal can keep a secret. If his lips are silent, he chatters with his fingertips; betrayal oozes out of him at every pore.” This is a critical concept in the search for a person’s weakness—it is revealed by seemingly unimportant gestures and passing words.

The key is not only what you look for but where and how you look. Everyday conversation supplies the richest mine of weaknesses, so train yourself to listen. Start by always seeming interested—the appearance of a sympathetic ear will spur anyone to talk. A clever trick, often used by the nineteenth-century French statesman Talleyrand, is to appear to open up to the other person, to share a secret with them. It can be completely made up, or it can be real but of no great importance to you—the important thing is that it should seem to come from the heart. This will usually elicit a response that is not only as frank as yours but more genuine—a response that reveals a weakness.

If you suspect that someone has a particular soft spot, probe for it indirectly. If, for instance, you sense that a man has a need to be loved, openly flatter him. If he laps up your compliments, no matter how obvious, you are on the right track. Train your eye for details—how someone tips a waiter, what delights a person, the hidden messages in clothes. Find people’s idols, the things they worship and will do anything to get—perhaps you can be the supplier of their fantasies. Remember: Since we all try to hide our weaknesses, there is little to be learned from our conscious behavior. What oozes out in the little things outside our conscious control is what you want to know.

Find the Helpless Child. Most weaknesses begin in childhood, before the self builds up compensatory defenses. Perhaps the child was pampered or indulged in a particular area, or perhaps a certain emotional need went unfulfilled; as he or she grows older, the indulgence or the deficiency may be buried but never disappears. Knowing about a childhood need gives you a powerful key to a person’s weakness.

One sign of this weakness is that when you touch on it the person will often act like a child. Be on the lookout, then, for any behavior that should have been outgrown. If your victims or rivals went without something important, such as parental support, when they were children, supply it, or its facsimile. If they reveal a secret taste, a hidden indulgence, indulge it. In either case they will be unable to resist you.

Look for Contrasts. An overt trait often conceals its opposite. People who thump their chests are often big cowards; a prudish exterior may hide a lascivious soul; the uptight are often screaming for adventure; the shy are dying for attention. By probing beyond appearances, you will often find people’s weaknesses in the opposite of the qualities they reveal to you.

Find the Weak Link. Sometimes in your search for weaknesses it is not what but who that matters. In today’s versions of the court, there is often someone behind the scenes who has a great deal of power, a tremendous influence over the person superficially on top. These behind-the-scenes powerbrokers are the group’s weak link: Win their favor and you indirectly influence the king. Alternatively, even in a group of people acting with the appearance of one will—as when a group under attack closes ranks to resist an outsider—there is always a weak link in the chain. Find the one person who will bend under pressure.

Fill the Void. The two main emotional voids to fill are insecurity and unhappiness. The insecure are suckers for any kind of social validation; as for the chronically unhappy, look for the roots of their unhappiness. The insecure and the unhappy are the people least able to disguise their weaknesses. The ability to fill their emotional voids is a great source of power, and an indefinitely prolongable one.

Feed on Uncontrollable Emotions. The uncontrollable emotion can be a paranoid fear—a fear disproportionate to the situation—or any base motive such as lust, greed, vanity, or hatred. People in the grip of these emotions often cannot control themselves, and you can do the controlling for them.

IRING IZAR

[Hollywood super-agent] Irving Paul Lazar was once anxious to sell [studio mogul] Jack L. Warner a play. 

“I had a long meeting with him today,” Lazar explained [to screenwriter Garson Kanin], “but I didn’t mention it, I didn’t even bring it up.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“Because I’m going to wait until the weekend after next, when I go to Palm Springs.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You don’t? I go to Palm Springs every weekend, but Warner isn’t going this weekend. He’s got a preview or something. So he’s not coming down till the next weekend, so that’s when I’m going to bring it up. ”

“Irving, I’m more and more confused.”

“Look,” said Irving impatiently, ”I know what I’m doing. I know how to sell Warner. This is a type of material that he’s uneasy with, so I have to hit him with it hard and suddenly to get an okay.”

”But why Palm Springs?”

”Because in Palm Springs, every day he goes to the baths at The Spa. And that’s where I’m going to be when he’s there. Now there’s a thing about Jack: He’s eighty and he’s very vain, and he doesn’t like people to see him naked. So when I walk up to him naked at The Spa—I mean he’s naked—well, I’m naked too, but I don’t care who sees me. He does. And I walk up to him naked, and I start to talk to him about this thing, he’ll be very embarrassed.And he’ll want to get away from me, and the easiest way is to say ‘Yes,’ because he knows if he says ‘No,’ then I’m going to stick with him, and stay right on it, and not give up. So to get rid of me, he’ll probably say, ‘Yes.’”

Two weeks later, I read of the acquisition of this particular property by Warner Brothers. I phoned Lazar and asked how it had been accomplished.

”How do you think?” he asked.

”In the buff, that’s how... just the way I told you it was going to work.”

HOLLYWOOD, GARSON KANIN, 1974

OBSERVANCES OF THE LAW

Observance I

In 1615 the thirty-year-old bishop of Luçon, later known as Cardinal Richelieu, gave a speech before representatives of the three estates of France—clergy, nobility, and commoners.

Richelieu had been chosen to serve as the mouthpiece for the clergy—an immense responsibility for a man still young and not particularly well known.

On all of the important issues of the day, the speech followed the Church line.

But near the end of it Richelieu did something that had nothing to do with the Church and everything to do with his career.

He turned to the throne of the fifteen-year-old King Louis XIII, and to the Queen Mother Marie de’ Médicis, who sat beside Louis, as the regent ruling France until her son reached his majority.

Everyone expected Richelieu to say the usual kind words to the young king.

Instead, however, he looked directly at and only at the queen mother.

Indeed his speech ended in long and fulsome praise of her, praise so glowing that it actually offended some in the Church.

But the smile on the queen’s face as she lapped up Richelieu’s compliments was unforgettable.

A year later the queen mother appointed Richelieu secretary of state for foreign affairs, an incredible coup for the young bishop.

He had now entered the inner circle of power, and he studied the workings of the court as if it were the machinery of a watch.

An Italian, Concino Concini, was the queen mother’s favorite, or rather her lover, a role that made him perhaps the most powerful man in France.

Concini was vain and foppish, and Richelieu played him perfectly—attending to him as if he were the king.

Within months Richelieu had become one of Concini’s favorites.

But something happened in 1617 that turned everything upside down: the young king, who up until then had shown every sign of being an idiot, had Concini murdered and his most important associates imprisoned.

In so doing Louis took command of the country with one blow, sweeping the queen mother aside.

Had Richelieu played it wrong?

He had been close to both Concini and Marie de Médicis, whose advisers and ministers were now all out of favor, some even arrested.

The queen mother herself was shut up in the Louvre, a virtual prisoner.

Richelieu wasted no time.

If everyone was deserting Marie de Médicis, he would stand by her.

He knew Louis could not get rid of her, for the king was still very young, and had in any case always been inordinately attached to her.

As Marie’s only remaining powerful friend, Richelieu filled the valuable function of liaison between the king and his mother.

In return he received her protection, and was able to survive the palace coup, even to thrive.

Over the next few years the queen mother grew still more dependent on him, and in 1622 she repaid him for his loyalty: Through the intercession of her allies in Rome, Richelieu was elevated to the powerful rank of cardinal.

By 1623 King Louis was in trouble.

He had no one he could trust to advise him, and although he was now a young man instead of a boy, he remained childish in spirit, and affairs of state came hard to him.

Now that he had taken the throne, Marie was no longer the regent and theoretically had no power, but she still had her son’s ear, and she kept telling him that Richelieu was his only possible savior.

At first Louis would have none of it—he hated the cardinal with a passion, only tolerating him out of love for Marie.

In the end, however, isolated in the court and crippled by his own indecisiveness, he yielded to his mother and made Richelieu first his chief councilor and later prime minister.

Now Richelieu no longer needed Marie de Médicis.

He stopped visiting and courting her, stopped listening to her opinions, even argued with her and opposed her wishes.

Instead he concentrated on the king, making himself indispensable to his new master.

All the previous premiers, understanding the king’s childishness, had tried to keep him out of trouble; the shrewd Richelieu played him differently, deliberately pushing him into one ambitious project after another, such as a crusade against the Huguenots and finally an extended war with Spain.

The immensity of these projects only made the king more dependent on his powerful premier, the only man able to keep order in the realm.

And so, for the next eighteen years, Richelieu, exploiting the king’s weaknesses, governed and molded France according to his own vision, unifying the country and making it a strong European power for centuries to come.

Interpretation

Richelieu saw everything as a military campaign, and no strategic move was more important to him than discovering his enemy’s weaknesses and applying pressure to them.

As early as his speech in 1615, he was looking for the weak link in the chain of power, and he saw that it was the queen mother.

Not that Marie was obviously weak—she governed both France and her son; but Richelieu saw that she was really an insecure woman who needed constant masculine attention.

He showered her with affection and respect, even toadying up to her favorite, Concini.

He knew the day would come when the king would take over, but he also recognized that Louis loved his mother dearly and would always remain a child in relation to her.

The way to control Louis, then, was not by gaining his favor, which could change overnight, but by gaining sway over his mother, for whom his affection would never change.

Once Richelieu had the position he desired—prime minister—he discarded the queen mother, moving on to the next weak link in the chain: the king’s own character.

There was a part of him that would always be a helpless child in need of higher authority.

It was on the foundation of the king’s weakness that Richelieu established his own power and fame.

Remember: When entering the court, find the weak link. The person in control is often not the king or queen; it is someone behind the scenes—the favorite, the husband or wife, even the court fool. This person may have more weaknesses than the king himself, because his power depends on all kinds of capricious factors outside his control.

Finally, when dealing with helpless children who cannot make decisions, play on their weakness and push them into bold ventures. They will have to depend on you even more, for you will become the adult figure whom they rely on to get them out of scrapes and to safety.

THE THINGS ON

As time went on I came to look for the little weaknesses.... 

It’s the little things that count.

On one occasion, I worked on the president of a large bank in Omaha. The [phony] deal involved the purchase of the street railway system of Omaha, including a bridge across the Mississippi River.

My principals were supposedly German and I had to negotiate with Berlin.

While awaiting word from them I introduced my fake mining-stock proposition.

Since this man was rich, I decided to play for high stakes....

Meanwhile, I played golf with the banker, visited his home, and went to the theater with him and his wife.

Though he showed some interest in my stock deal, he still wasn’t convinced.

I had built it up to the point that an investment of $1,250,000 was required.

Of this I was to put up $900,000, the banker $350,000.

But still he hesitated.

One evening when I was at his home for dinner I wore some perfume-Coty’s “April Violets.”

It was not then considered effeminate for a man to use a dash of perfume.

The banker’s wife thought it very lovely.

“Where did you get it?”

“It is a rare blend,” I told her, “especially made for me by a French perfumer. Do you like it?”

”l love it,” she replied.

The following day I went through my effects and found two empty bottles.

Both had come from France, but were empty.

I went to a downtown department store and purchased ten ounces of Coty’s ”April Violets.”

I poured this into the two French bottles, carefully sealed them, wrapped them in tissue paper.

That evening I dropped by the banker’s home and presented the two bottles to his wife.

”They were especially put up for me in Cologne,” I told her.

The next day the banker called at my hotel.

His wife was enraptured by the perfume.

She considered it the most wonderful, the most exotic fragrance she had ever used.

I did not tell the banker he could get all he wanted right in Omaha.

”She said,” the banker added, ”that I was fortunate to be associated with a man like you.”

From then on his attitude was changed, for he had complete faith in his wife’s judgment .... He parted with $350,000.

This, incidentally was my biggest [con] score.

-“YELLOW KID” WEIL, 1875-1976

Observance II

In December of 1925, guests at the swankiest hotel in Palm Beach, Florida, watched with interest as a mysterious man arrived in a Rolls-Royce driven by a Japanese chauffeur.

Over the next few days they studied this handsome man, who walked with an elegant cane, received telegrams at all hours, and only engaged in the briefest of conversations.

He was a count, they heard, Count Victor Lustig, and he came from one of the wealthiest families in Europe—but this was all they could find out.

Imagine their amazement, then, when Lustig one day walked up to one of the least distinguished guests in the hotel, a Mr. Herman Loller, head of an engineering company, and entered into conversation with him.

Loller had made his fortune only recently, and forging social connections was very important to him.

He felt honored and somewhat intimidated by this sophisticated man, who spoke perfect English with a hint of a foreign accent.

Over the days to come, the two became friends.

Loller of course did most of the talking, and one night he confessed that his business was doing poorly, with more troubles ahead.

In return, Lustig confided in his new friend that he too had serious money problems—Communists had seized his family estate and all its assets.

He was too old to learn a trade and go to work.

Luckily he had found an answer—“ a money-making machine.”

“You counterfeit?”

Loller whispered in half-shock.

No, Lustig replied, explaining that through a secret chemical process, his machine could duplicate any paper currency with complete accuracy.

Put in a dollar bill and six hours later you had two, both perfect.

He proceeded to explain how the machine had been smuggled out of Europe, how the Germans had developed it to undermine the British, how it had supported the count for several years, and on and on.

When Loller insisted on a demonstration, the two men went to Lustig’s room, where the count produced a magnificent mahogany box fitted with slots, cranks, and dials.

Loller watched as Lustig inserted a dollar bill in the box. Sure enough, early the following morning Lustig pulled out two bills, still wet from the chemicals.

Lustig gave the notes to Loller, who immediately took the bills to a local bank—which accepted them as genuine.

Now the businessman feverishly begged Lustig to sell him a machine.

The count explained that there was only one in existence, so Loller made him a high offer: $25,000, then a considerable amount (more than $400,000 in today’s terms).

Even so, Lustig seemed reluctant: He did not feel right about making his friend pay so much.

Yet finally he agreed to the sale.

After all, he said,

“I suppose it matters little what you pay me. You are, after all, going to recover the amount within a few days by duplicating your own bills.” 

Making Loller swear never to reveal the machine’s existence to other people, Lustig accepted the money.

Later the same day he checked out of the hotel.

A year later, after many futile attempts at duplicating bills, Loller finally went to the police with the story of how Count Lustig had conned him with a pair of dollar bills, some chemicals, and a worthless mahogany box.

Interpretation

Count Lustig had an eagle eye for other people’s weaknesses.

He saw them in the smallest gesture.

Loller, for instance, overtipped waiters, seemed nervous in conversation with the concierge, talked loudly about his business.

His weakness, Lustig knew, was his need for social validation and for the respect that he thought his wealth had earned him.

He was also chronically insecure.

Lustig had come to the hotel to hunt for prey.

In Loller he homed in on the perfect sucker—a man hungering for someone to fill his psychic voids.

In offering Loller his friendship, then, Lustig knew he was offering him the immediate respect of the other guests.

As a count, Lustig was also offering the newly rich businessman access to the glittering world of old wealth.

And for the coup de grace, he apparently owned a machine that would rescue Loller from his worries.

It would even put him on a par with Lustig himself, who had also used the machine to maintain his status.

No wonder Loller took the bait.

Remember: When searching for suckers, always look for the dissatisfied, the unhappy, the insecure. Such people are riddled with weaknesses and have needs that you can fill. Their neediness is the groove in which you place your thumbnail and turn them at will.

Observance III

In the year 1559, the French king Henri II died in a jousting exhibition.

His son assumed the throne, becoming Francis II, but in the background stood Henri’s wife and queen, Catherine de’ Médicis, a woman who had long ago proven her skill in affairs of state.

When Francis died the next year, Catherine took control of the country as regent to her next son in line of succession, the future Charles IX, a mere ten years old at the time.

The main threats to the queen’s power were Antoine de Bourbon, king of Navarre, and his brother, Louis, the powerful prince of Condé, both of whom could claim the right to serve as regent instead of Catherine, who, after all, was Italian—a foreigner.

Catherine quickly appointed Antoine lieutenant general of the kingdom, a title that seemed to satisfy his ambition.

It also meant that he had to remain in court, where Catherine could keep an eye on him.

Her next move proved smarter still: Antoine had a notorious weakness for young women, so she assigned one of her most attractive maids of honor, Louise de Rouet, to seduce him.

Now Antoine’s intimate, Louise reported all of his actions to Catherine.

The move worked so brilliantly that Catherine assigned another of her maids to Prince Condé, and thus was formed her escadron volant—“flying squadron”—of young girls whom she used to keep the unsuspecting males in the court under her control.

In 1572 Catherine married off her daughter, Marguerite de Valois, to Henri, the son of Antoine and the new king of Navarre.

To put a family that had always struggled against her so close to power was a dangerous move, so to make sure of Henri’s loyalty she unleashed on him the loveliest member of her “flying squadron,” Charlotte de Beaune Semblançay, baroness of Sauves.

Catherine did this even though Henri was married to her daughter.

Within weeks, Marguerite de Valois wrote in her memoirs,

“Mme. de Sauves so completely ensnared my husband that we no longer slept together, nor even conversed.”

And while I am on the subject, there is another fact that deserves mention. It is this. A man shows his character just in the way in which he deals with trifles-for then he is off his guard.

This will often afford a good opportunity of observing the boundless egoism of a man’s nature, and his total lack of consideration for others; and if these defects show themselves in small things, or merely in his general demeanor, you will find that they also underlie his action in matters of importance, although he may disguise the fact.

This is an opportunity which should not be missed.

If in the little affairs of every day—the trifles of life...—a man is inconsiderate and seeks only what is advantageous or convenient to himself, to the prejudice of others’ rights; if he appropriates to himself that which belongs to all alike, you may be sure there is no justice in his heart, and that he would be a scoundrel on a wholesale scale, only that law and compulsion bind his hands.

-Arthur SCHOPENHAUER, 1788-1860

The baroness was an excellent spy and helped to keep Henri under Catherine’s thumb.

When the queen’s youngest son, the Duke of Alençon, grew so close to Henri that she feared the two might plot against her, she assigned the baroness to him as well.

This most infamous member of the flying squadron quickly seduced Alençon, and soon the two young men fought over her and their friendship quickly ended, along with any danger of a conspiracy.

Interpretation

Catherine had seen very early on the sway that a mistress has over a man of power: Her own husband, Henri II, had kept one of the most infamous mistresses of them all, Diane de Poitiers.

What Catherine learned from the experience was that a man like her husband wanted to feel he could win a woman over without having to rely on his status, which he had inherited rather than earned.

And such a need contained a huge blind spot: As long as the woman began the affair by acting as if she had been conquered, the man would fail to notice that as time passed the mistress had come to hold power over him, as Diane de Poitiers did over Henri.

It was Catherine’s strategy to turn this weakness to her advantage, using it as a way to conquer and control men.

All she had to do was unleash the loveliest women in the court, her “flying squadron,” on men whom she knew shared her husband’s vulnerability.

Remember: Always look for passions and obsessions that cannot be controlled. The stronger the passion, the more vulnerable the person.

This may seem surprising, for passionate people look strong.

In fact, however, they are simply filling the stage with their theatricality, distracting people from how weak and helpless they really are.

A man’s need to conquer women actually reveals a tremendous helplessness that has made suckers out of them for thousands of years.

Look at the part of a person that is most visible—their greed, their lust, their intense fear.

These are the emotions they cannot conceal, and over which they have the least control.

And what people cannot control, you can control for them.

THE BATTLE AT PHARSALIA

When the two armies [Julius Caesar’s and Pompey‘s] were come into Pharsalia, and both encamped there, Pompey’s thoughts ran the same way as they had done before, against fighting.... 

But those who were about him were greatly confident of success ...

...as if they had already conquered....

The cavalry especially were obstinate for fighting, being splendidly armed and bravely mounted, and valuing themselves upon the fine horses they kept, and upon their own handsome persons; as also upon the advantage of their numbers, for they were five thousand against one thousand of Caesar’s.

Nor were the numbers of the infantry less disproportionate, there being forty-five thousand of Pompey’s against twenty-two thousand of the enemy.

[The next day] whilst the infantry was thus sharply engaged in the main battle, on the flank Pompey’s horse rode up confidently, and opened [his cavalry’s] ranks very wide, that they might surround the right wing of Caesar.

But before they engaged, Caesar’s cohorts rushed out and attacked them, and did not dart their javelins at a distance, nor strike at the thighs and legs, as they usually did in close battle, but aimed at their faces.

For thus Caesar had instructed them, in hopes that young gentlemen, who had not known much of battles and wounds, but came wearing their hair long, in the flower of their age and height of their beauty, would be more apprehensive of such blows, and not care for hazarding both a danger at present and a blemish for the future.

And so it proved, for they were so far from bearing the stroke of the javelins, that they could not stand the sight of them, but turned about, and covered their faces to secure them.

Once in disorder, presently they turned about to fly; and so most shamefully ruined all.

For those who had beat them back at once outflanked the infantry, and falling on their rear, cut them to pieces.

Pompey, who commanded the other wing of the army, when he saw his cavalry thus broken and flying, was no longer himself, nor did he now remember that he was Pompey the Great, but, like one whom some god had deprived of his senses, retired to his tent without speaking a word, and there sat to expect the event, till the whole army was routed.

-THE LIFE OF JULIUS CAESAR. PLUIARCH, c. A.D. 46-120

Observance IV

Arabella Huntington, wife of the great late-nineteenth-century railroad magnate Collis P. Huntington, came from humble origins and always struggled for social recognition among her wealthy peers.

When she gave a party in her San Francisco mansion, few of the social elite would show up; most of them took her for a gold digger, not their kind.

Because of her husband’s fabulous wealth, art dealers courted her, but with such condescension they obviously saw her as an upstart.

Only one man of consequence treated her differently: the dealer Joseph Duveen.

For the first few years of Duveen’s relationship with Arabella, he made no effort to sell expensive art to her.

Instead he accompanied her to fine stores, chatted endlessly about queens and princesses he knew, on and on.

At last, she thought, a man who treated her as an equal, even a superior, in high society.

Meanwhile, if Duveen did not try to sell art to her, he did subtly educate her in his aesthetic ideas—namely, that the best art was the most expensive art.

And after Arabella had soaked up his way of seeing things, Duveen would act as if she always had exquisite taste, even though before she met him her aesthetics had been abysmal.

When Collis Huntington died, in 1900, Arabella came into a fortune.

She suddenly started to buy expensive paintings, by Rembrandt and Velázquez, for example—and only from Duveen.

Years later Duveen sold her Gainsborough’s Blue Boy for the highest price ever paid for a work of art at the time, an astounding purchase for a family that previously had shown little interest in collecting.

Interpretation

Joseph Duveen instantly understood Arabella Huntington and what made her tick: She wanted to feel important, at home in society.

Intensely insecure about her lower-class background, she needed confirmation of her new social status.

Duveen waited. Instead of rushing into trying to persuade her to collect art, he subtly went to work on her weaknesses.

He made her feel that she deserved his attention not because she was the wife of one of the wealthiest men in the world but because of her own special character—and this completely melted her.

Duveen never condescended to Arabella; rather than lecturing to her, he instilled his ideas in her indirectly.

The result was one of his best and most devoted clients, and also the sale of The Blue Boy.

People’s need for validation and recognition, their need to feel important, is the best kind of weakness to exploit.

First, it is almost universal; second, exploiting it is so very easy.

All you have to do is find ways to make people feel better about their taste, their social standing, their intelligence.

Once the fish are hooked, you can reel them in again and again, for years—you are filling a positive role, giving them what they cannot get on their own.

They may never suspect that you are turning them like a thumbscrew, and if they do they may not care, because you are making them feel better about themselves, and that is worth any price.

Observance V

In 1862 King William of Prussia named Otto von Bismarck premier and minister for foreign affairs.

Bismarck was known for his boldness, his ambition—and his interest in strengthening the military.

Since William was surrounded by liberals in his government and cabinet, politicians who already wanted to limit his powers, it was quite dangerous for him to put Bismarck in this sensitive position.

His wife, Queen Augusta, had tried to dissuade him, but although she usually got her way with him, this time William stuck to his guns.

Only a week after becoming prime minister, Bismarck made an impromptu speech to a few dozen ministers to convince them of the need to enlarge the army.

He ended by saying, “The great questions of the time will be decided, not by speeches and resolutions of majorities, but by iron and blood.”

His speech was immediately disseminated throughout Germany.

The queen screamed at her husband that Bismarck was a barbaric militarist who was out to usurp control of Prussia, and that William had to fire him.

The liberals in the government agreed with her.

The outcry was so vehement that William began to be afraid he would end up on a scaffold, like Louis XVI of France, if he kept Bismarck on as prime minister.

Bismarck knew he had to get to the king before it was too late.

He also knew he had blundered, and should have tempered his fiery words.

Yet as he contemplated his strategy, he decided not to apologize but to do the exact opposite.

Bismarck knew the king well.

When the two men met, William, predictably, had been worked into a tizzy by the queen.

He reiterated his fear of being guillotined.

But Bismarck only replied,

“Yes, then we shall be dead! We must die sooner or later, and could there be a more respectable way of dying? I should die fighting for the cause of my king and master. Your Majesty would die sealing with your own blood your royal rights granted by God’s grace. Whether upon the scaffold or upon the battlefield makes no difference to the glorious staking of body and life on behalf of rights granted by God’s grace!” 

On he went, appealing to William’s sense of honor and the majesty of his position as head of the army.

How could the king allow people to push him around?

Wasn’t the honor of Germany more important than quibbling over words?

Not only did the prime minister convince the king to stand up to both his wife and his parliament, he persuaded him to build up the army—Bismarck’s goal all along.

Interpretation

Bismarck knew the king felt bullied by those around him.

He knew that William had a military background and a deep sense of honor, and that he felt ashamed at his cravenness before his wife and his government.

William secretly yearned to be a great and mighty king, but he dared not express this ambition because he was afraid of ending up like Louis XVI.

Where a show of courage often conceals a man’s timidity, William’s timidity concealed his need to show courage and thump his chest.

Bismarck sensed the longing for glory beneath William’s pacifist front, so he played to the king’s insecurity about his manhood, finally pushing him into three wars and the creation of a German empire.

Timidity is a potent weakness to exploit. Timid souls often yearn to be their opposite—to be Napoleons. Yet they lack the inner strength.

You, in essence, can become their Napoleon, pushing them into bold actions that serve your needs while also making them dependent on you.

Remember: Look to the opposites and never take appearances at face value.

Image: The
Thumbscrew.
Your enemy
has secrets that
he guards, thinks
thoughts he will
not reveal. But
they come out in
ways he cannot
help. It is there some
where, a groove of
weakness on his head,
at his heart, over his
belly. Once you find the
groove, put your thumb in
it and turn him at will.

Authority: Find out each man’s thumbscrew.

’Tis the art of setting their wills in action. It needs more skill than resolution. You must know where to get at anyone. Every volition has a special motive which varies according to taste. All men are idolaters, some of fame, others of self-interest, most of pleasure. Skill consists in knowing these idols in order to bring them into play. Knowing any man’s mainspring of motive you have as it were the key to his will. 

(Baltasar Gracián, 1601-1658)

REVERSAL

Playing on people’s weakness has one significant danger: You may stir up an action you cannot control.

In your games of power you always look several steps ahead and plan accordingly. And you exploit the fact that other people are more emotional and incapable of such foresight.

But when you play on their vulnerabilities, the areas over which they have least control, you can unleash emotions that will upset your plans. Push timid people into bold action and they may go too far; answer their need for attention or recognition and they may need more than you want to give them.

The helpless, childish element you are playing on can turn against you.

The more emotional the weakness, the greater the potential danger. Know the limits to this game, then, and never get carried away by your control over your victims. You are after power, not the thrill of control.

Conclusion

I just cannot help but wonder if the American neocons are playing President Biden using this Thumbscrew technique to force Biden to approve of outlandish military actions that run counter to his decades of behavior within the Untied States government. It’s something to ponder.

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Interview and remembrances of a United States Naval Aviator who flew A-6 Intruder bombers

Naval Aviation is a small club. As it should be. Here’s a great write up of the experiences of Paco and his experiences with the A-6 Intruder.

This guy flew “shake n’ bakes” in pursuit of “crispy critters”. Or at least that’s what we used to call it decades ago… “in the day”…

It's a great read. All credit to him for his autobiography, note that this was edited to fit this venue. The original article was found on .

Confessions Of An A-6 Intruder Pilot

Strap in alongside veteran pilot Francesco “Paco” Chierici for a trip back in time when A-6s still rocketed through canyons in the black of night.

It may not be as well known as its maker’s point-nosed, swing-wing counterpart, the F-14 Tomcat, but Grumman’s A-6 Intruder was also a movie star and served as the backbone of the carrier air wing’s all weather, deep strike capability for decades. The all-business A-6 was capable of doling out a very heavy punch far from its home at sea and it was most at home down low, deep in the weeds, barrelling through enemy territory under the darkness of night.

One A-6 pilot, Francesco “Paco” Chierici, flew the blunt-nosed attack jet during the twilight of its career and is about to share exactly what it is like to strap into the ‘flying drumstick’ and take it over hostile territory, down deep and dark ravines, and into the history books as it began to fade from the Navy’s inventory once and for all.

Paco’s experiences at the controls of the Intruder are especially noteworthy as he would go on to fly higher-performance aircraft, transitioning into the F-14 and later becoming an aggressor pilot in the F-5—areas we will discuss in part two of this series. So, suffice it to say, with thousands of hours in fast jets, Chierici has plenty to compare the A-6 to.

Francesco “Paco” Chierici

Paco has thousands of hours in fast jets, with the A-6 being the first fleet aircraft he was assigned to fly.

This tell-all feature also comes just as Paco released his first novel, Lions Of The Sky. If what you are about to read is any indication, his novel should be outstanding and we look forward to reviewing it soon.

​So, without further ado, let’s climb the intakes and step into the side-by-side cockpit of Grumman’s legendary deep strike phenom, and launch on alongside Paco on a ride to remember.

So ugly you had to force yourself to be fiercely proud of it

I’ll never forget the first time I walked up to an A-6. It was huge compared to the TA-4 Skyhawk jet trainer I had most recently flown. Nearly three times heavier. Two engines, versus one. Whereas the TA-4 was sleek and spindly on its tall landing gear, the Intruder was beefy and serious. The TA-4 looked nimble, the Tomcat was movie-pretty, the Intruder looked like what it was—a war club.

The cockpit of the Intruder was radically different as well. The visibility over the big bulbous nose wasn’t as good as the Skyhawk, but the side glass went all the way down to my hip. It was insane, you could practically see underneath the plane without even rolling.

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The instrument panel was much more serious, as well. It was absolutely filled with screens and switches. It was clearly a huge step up from the trainers I’d spent the last few years mastering. Now it would be less about the flying and more about the mission.

The biggest difference in the Intruder cockpit was the seat to my right, though. The Bombardier/Navigators (BNs) sat just below and aft of the pilot, but basically beside us. It was initially irritating to give up half of the cockpit, sacrificing visibility and primacy, to the BN, but I soon discovered that the camaraderie in that cockpit was unlike anything I would ever experience again. We would literally high-five after rolling off-target and spotting the bomb hit.

It was awesome.

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The Intruder’s unique side-by-side seating layout

One of my favorite stupid-pilot tricks was asking the BN to check the right side just before coming into the overhead break. While he was looking out, I would disconnect his G-suit hose just before break-turning at 6.5Gs. I got Gradymon Hackwith to pass out a couple of times. He would punch me in the arm until I rolled into the groove and he was forced to let me fly the ball to landing.

I would be laughing so hard there were tears.

The exterior of the Intruder was dominated by its giant nose. The plane was quite obviously built around the enormous terrain-following radar. We also had an extremely prominent refueling probe permanently jutting out from where the radome met the lower part of the windscreen.

The plane was kind of like a bulldog, so ugly you had to force yourself to be fiercely proud of it.

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A heavy hitter

One of the great things about the Intruder was its punch. During its heyday, it was second only to the B-52 in payload. That was remarkable because she was only 54 feet long with a wingspan of 53 feet, as compared to the BUFF, which is 159 feet long and 185 feet wide. Also, she was launching off of a 1,100-foot carrier, whereas the BUFF rumbled down a two-mile runway before it was able to claw itself into the sky.

Without any modifications, the A-6 could carry 28 MK-82 500-pound bombs. If the gear doors were removed, it was an even 30. That was 15,000 pounds of ordnance on a plane that only weighed 27,000 pounds empty. Fill her up with gas and we were launching off the deck in 300 feet, zero to 160 knots, at 60,000 pounds of gross weight.

That was quite a ride.

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One of the advantages of having such an aerodynamically challenged airframe was that she didn’t handle much differently fully loaded than when she was clean. Alright, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but in all honesty, she was a dream to fly low, fast, and laden with weapons.

The wing root, where the wing attached to the fuselage, was enormously thick. We could fly all day (and night) with a serious bomb load-out at low-level and pull five Gs or more. The Intruder was impervious.

The addition of the FLIR (Forward Looking Infrared) pod—which happened well before my time—enabled the A-6 to transition from a mere heavy-hitter to a precision striker. Whereas before there were two basic modes of delivery, the pilot doing a visual dive and the BN using the radar to drive the plane to a bomb release point, the FLIR introduced a level of precise aim-point fine-tuning that was completely unique at the time.

In the target area, the BN would transition from the radar picture to the FLIR. Using the laser and the crosshairs in the FLIR picture he would fine tune the information the pilot used to arrive at the proper delivery point. Those capabilities enabled the Intruder to precisely deliver iron bombs and laser-guided bombs in almost any weather conditions and at night.

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A-6Es releasing thousands of pounds of Mk82 Snakeye bombs.

A dark wizard by your side

The Intruder was unlike any other plane I flew in that it was built with the other crew in mind—the BN. The A-6 was an all-weather, low-level, day/night, medium attack plane. Basically, a bad-ass bomber that could fly at treetop level through the enemy’s backyard and drop tons of ordnance.

To accomplish that mission we had an amazing terrain following radar—again that big ugly thing on the nose. We also had a super-capable FLIR gimbaling pod under the chin. The FLIR pod didn’t add anything to the appearance, it looked like a wart on a witch’s chin, but it did add precision to the already impressive payload.

The BN was responsible for using the radar to navigate through steep valleys and canyons using the raw returns. The pilot used computer-generated information on the screen in front of him to hand fly the plane along the general path the BN laid out. Once the target area was penetrated, the BN would activate the FLIR ball. He would ‘laze’ the target, both for accurate ranging regardless of what weapons were delivered, and as a target designator for laser-guided ordnance. He would also slew the crosshairs of the FLIR to sweeten up the final phase of targeting. The pilot would again follow the computer-generated guidance on our screens derived from all of the BNs efforts, flip the Master Arm on, and then pickle off the weapon.

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We would routinely do this at night, though the mountains, in the clouds and rain, and at 200 feet and 420 knots. There was zero automation, the pilot hand-flew the plane at all times. But to me, the craziest aspect was that the BNs stuck their heads in the boot covering the radar and FLIR screens through the whole mission.

The boot was essentially a shroud with a padded hole where the BN would stick his face. It shielded the cockpit from the light of the radar so it wouldn’t blind the pilot during night flying. But when using it, the BN couldn’t see what was going on outside in the real world. So we would be flying through steep ravines at seven miles a minute at night as low as we dared, I would be glancing nervously at the granite cliff wall I could barely make out and the BN was stuck with his head down, arms spinning dials and switches like some dark wizard, immersed in his virtual world of radar returns and seemingly oblivious to the violent yanking and banking as we jinked through the low-level route.

The flying became even more aggressive once we entered the target area and executed any number of dynamic weapons delivery pops, all while the BN kept his head glued in his boot.

Craziness.

Because of that dedication to the mission and the simple fact that the Intruder was designed to be optimized by the BN, the community was as flat as any I’ve ever seen. Meaning that there was almost no greater weight placed on whether someone was a pilot or a BN. This was definitely not true in the fighter communities, where pilots considered themselves far superior to anyone, whether they were in aviation or not.

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An accidental fighter pilot

I was as close as you can be to an accidental fighter pilot. As a kid, I built plane models and hung them from the ceiling of my room in a huge Battle of Britain dogfight. But as I got older, I drifted away from the romance of aviation.

I didn’t grow up around planes. No one I knew was a pilot. I wasn’t one of those kids who washed Pipers at the local airport for gas money. Fortunately, I needed money to pay for college and I joined the Navy ROTC. What began as a means to an end morphed into an opportunity of a lifetime.

As a Midshipman, I was exposed to all of the communities that were available to me after graduation. After a couple of years, I was strongly inclined to pursue Naval Aviation and then something decisive happened the summer before Junior year. I got a back-seat ride in an F-14 with VF-51 and it was love at first flight. I couldn’t imagine doing anything else after I got a taste.

I was obsessed.

In the spring of our senior year, we received our community assignments. All the graduating ROTC and Naval Academy kids were ranked, then the slots were given out in order. It was, and is, extremely competitive to get aviation and I was beyond thrilled to receive my dream shot.

Hundreds of SNAs—Student Naval Aviators—gathered in the Cradle of Naval Aviation—Pensacola, Florida—that summer and we churned our way through the sausage factory that was flight school. I made it through all the fail points: academics, physical training, and primary training in the T-34. After all that I was selected for jets.

I went through intermediate training in the T-2 Buckeye, where I saw the carrier for the first time, and finally advanced flight training in the TA-4J Skyhawk. After carrier qualifying in the Skyhawk, I had finally completed the multi-year odyssey that began when I was first smitten.

The winging ceremony was an emotional, momentary personal victory. I was finally a Naval Aviator sporting wings of gold.

Little did I realize that the real work was about to begin.

 

Francesco Chierici

A young Paco standing in front of his mount.

The night is dark and full of terrors

The A-6 was super honest to land. It had a great combination of wing sweep, responsive engines, and drag which allowed for quick and fine corrections while flying the meatball.

Near the completion of training, we would carrier qualify, day and night. It was a big deal, our final exam. In the Intruder community, we would go to the boat for the first time with a fellow student, a BN that was our classmate. I was lucky enough to go with my good friend Gradymon. It was an intense experience for both of us, but especially for Grady since he had never seen an aircraft carrier from the air. The first time the BNs ever got to land on a ship was with a fellow knucklehead student (who routinely disconnected his G-suit hose at inappropriate times) piloting him.

Those guys were either crazy or brave as shit.

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The day landings were awesome and similar to the landings I had done in the T-2 and TA-4, but the night landings were going to be a completely new ballgame for me. It was going to be a huge comfort to have Grady by my side. Unfortunately, we didn’t make it up that night.

We spent the evening on the USS Ranger, having dinner and waiting for our turn to climb into a jet. The plan was for us to hot-switch into a plane that our classmates were currently flying. After their last night landing, they would be chained to the deck. With the engines still running, we would switch crews one at a time until Grady and I were safely strapped into the still running jet. Then we’d get fueled up and taxi to the catapult to take our turn at six night traps.

We tracked our jet as she went around the pattern, successfully landing five times. After she took off for the last time, we made our way up to flight deck control to await the last landing and the hot-switch. There were multiple TVs and a window facing the landing area.

I’ll never forget watching my jet on the TV as she was about to land. I leaned over to tighten my chest strap and she hit the deck and caught a wire. As I stood up, I could see her through the window. One moment she was decelerating with both engines howling at full power, just as normal. The next, the pilot and BN ejected, the jet angled out of the landing area toward a row of parked F/A-18s, slammed into them, then flipped into the water.

One of the F/A-18s snapped out of her chains and flipped into the water as well. Another was impacted so hard it also snapped its chains and spun 180 degrees, managing to barely stay on the deck. I stood there in Flight Deck Control with my hands still on my straps, my jaw hanging open.

The Intruder I was supposed to climb into and fly my very first night carrier landings had just broken its tailhook, smashed into three Hornets, and flipped into the sea.

Welcome to naval aviation!

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At home in the weeds

In the Intruder, flying nap-of-the-earth was our bread and butter. We did it during the day, free and loose, darting down the tiniest riverbeds and through the slightest cracks we could find. During the night and in bad weather, we also flew low and fast, but in a much more prescribed manner.

The low levels we flew were delineated in a huge manual, which contained the lat/long fixes defining the routes themselves. For the most part, the routes were ten miles wide, five miles to each side of the center-line running from fix to fix. A ten-mile corridor actually gives a pilot a tremendous amount of leeway to find the most tactically relevant course through the terrain, as well as the most fun. So, even the same route was not always the same.

Night low levels were a different beast. To become night proficient, a pilot and BN crew would have to complete three steps within a week. First, they would have to fly a route in the dome simulator. Then they would fly the same route during the day, and finally at night. This gave the crew two opportunities for the BN to familiarize himself with the radar picture before flying the actual route in darkness.

Once you were night low-level qualified, you could then fly any route, day or night.

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A-6 Intruder rocketing through a very deep canyon as seen from the BN’s position.

Nuclear chariot

One of the missions the A-6 was initially designed for was nuclear delivery of the B61 tactical nuclear bomb, affectionately known as the ‘dial-a-yield.’ There was literally a rotating switch inside a panel where the ordnancemen could select from .3 to 340 kilotons for when the bomb detonated. It was an incredible amount of power in a weapon that measured only twelve feet by one-foot and weighed just 700 pounds. By comparison, ‘Little Boy’ which was dropped on Hiroshima, weighed almost 10,000 pounds and had a defined yield of 15 kilotons.

It was chilling to imagine that something so diabolically versatile and powerful could be carried on a small jet and weigh less than an AGM-88 Hight-Speed Anti-Radiation Missile (HARM).

The main method of delivering the B61 was through a specific maneuver selectable in the computer, the LABS-IP, which stood for Low Altitude Bombing System – Initial Point. To practice this delivery, we would ingress to the target at low-level, usually at 480 knots, and once reaching the target area, we would accelerate to 540 knots.

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B61 and its components.

At a certain distance from the target, which the BN was constantly fine-tuning through the radar and FLIR, the computer would command the pilot to pitch up. We would get guidance on our primary instrument commanding us into a 4G pull and we had to correct the horizontal flight path as well. Despite the Gs, we had to be as smooth as possible because at some point during the pull, 50-75 degrees nose high, the computer would release the weapon into a massive loft.  The pilot would then keep his pull through a Half Cuban Eight, ending the maneuver heading in the direction they came from, at 200 feet, pedaling as fast as they could go.

The bomb would be lofted as high as six miles into the sky, and depending on the programming for the specific target, a parachute would open allowing the B61 to float toward earth, thus giving the delivery aircraft valuable time to race away before detonation.

The procedures called for each crew to close one eye at the time of detonation, in case the flash caused blindness. We used to joke that the pilots would close both eyes and the BNs would keep theirs open, since their jobs were done.

It was a heartless crowd.

I came into the fleet just after Gulf War I, in the summer of 1991. The Cold War was done, and we had just shed the onerous nuke delivery mission. I was one of the first pilots in my squadron not to have to go through the two-month drudgery of getting my ‘Nuke Cert.’

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The Navy was out of the tactical nuclear bomb delivery business by the early 1990s.

Joining the fleet

I joined VA-155 the day they triumphantly flew in from their Gulf War cruise. The Silver Foxes were heroic in the conflict. They flew the first-night sorties into Bagdad at low-level, attacking vital military targets as surface-to-air missiles flew in all directions overhead. Throughout the forty-day air campaign, they were instrumental in completely demolishing Saddam’s military. Tragically, they lost one plane in combat in the waters just off Kuwait.

After combat ended, they partied their way home through various exotic ports of call, drunk from all their death-defying exploits. I remember swelling with pride as I stood in my khaki uniform on the flight line and watched them fly in.

The next six months, on the other hand, sucked as bad as any in my Navy career.

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VA-145 A-6E on the ramp in 1992.

I was the first new pilot the Foxes had gotten in over a year. They were all heroes and I was just the FNG (F’n New Guy). It was almost impossible to penetrate the camaraderie they had naturally forged. It took a few of the older guys rotating out and an additional influx of new guys, including a bunch of my classmates, for us to finally feel like we belonged.

The Foxes ended up being an amazing experience for me, filled with incredible adventures and great people.

The work-ups for our first cruise were instrumental in building the new collection of Foxes into a cohesive squadron. The experienced aviators trained the new guys well and we quickly bonded into an effective unit.

It was during this early stage of my fleet career that I first experienced the shattering pain of loss. Air Wing Two lost a Tomcat during a night mission while we were all at NAS Fallon. And much closer to home, my good friend Grady and his pilot Dewey, fellow Silver Foxes, perished in a low-level training accident.

Of the twenty-plus friends I lost during my career, Grady’s was one of the most difficult to endure. We had come up through the RAG together as fast friends. I had flown with Grady more than any other single BN in my brief career. We rejoiced when we were both assigned to VA-155 and looked forward to three more years of fun and flying.

The sudden shock of his death shook me to my core, damaging my confidence for months.

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Intruder’s place in the Air Wing

When I cruised on the Ranger, we were the last of the all-Grumman Air Wings [read all about this unique arrangement in this past post of ours]. There were a number of other NSFW and non-PC terms that were used to reference the absence of the new kid on the block, the F/A-18 Hornet.

Air Wing Two was composed primarily of two squadrons of Tomcats and two of Intruders. My first squadron assignment was with VA-155, the Silver Foxes. Our sister squadron was VA-145, the Swordsmen.

Air Wing Two on the Ranger was basically the last of the old-school air wings. The division of labor was absolutely clear, if you needed the skies swept of enemy jets, the Tomcats took to the air. If you needed bridges demolished, buildings leveled, hardened bunkers penetrated, ground-armor destroyed, troops-in-the-open decimated, or SAM sites taken out, then the Intruder was on the job.

Though in the competition between Top Gun and Flight of the Intruder movies, the f^@%!*g Tomcats clearly won the battle. But the long list of accomplishments achieved by the Intruders in Air Wing Two during the first Gulf War clearly overshadowed their more glamorous Grumman brethren.

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Ranger with its Grumman Air Wing.

All that gas

Most of my career was spent operating in the Persian Gulf where we had ample Air Force tanker support, but I flew a handful of tanker hops where we would strap four 2,000-pound drop-tanks and a centerline mounted D-704 refueling-pod, which aside from containing the retracting hose and basket, held another 2,000-pounds of gas.

The most fun tanker hops were the daytime yo-yo missions where you would launch before the fighters and strikers, meet them a couple hundred miles from the carrier along their strike route, give them almost all of your gas (18,000-20,000 pounds of give!) and then race back to the carrier for a solo shit-hot break.

The most rewarding tanker hops were when you were assigned as a recovery tanker for the last event of the night. Your job was to orbit overhead and be prepared to offer emergency gas to the planes that were coming down to land in the event they boltered (missed all the wires) or were waved off.

During Blue-Water ops, when we operated beyond the range of possibility to divert to a land-based runway, it was particularly challenging and a massive responsibility. Carrier-based jets are fuel-critical from the moment we start our engines. When we fly far enough out to sea where calling ‘uncle’ and landing on a runway isn’t possible, every ounce of gas becomes precious.

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An A-6E Intruder about to tank from a KA-6D Intruder. The KA-6Ds were uniquely configured with an internal hose and drogue system and were notoriously hard worn with extreme limits on their flight envelope due to being passed around from deployment to deployment. By the time Paco was flying Intruders, the A-6E carrying a refueling pod was the common ‘buddy tanker’ setup.

Once the night missions are complete and it’s time to land, the jets have enough gas for maybe two attempts to catch a wire. Throw in some weather, a pitching deck, a dark night and the knowledge that you either are landing safely on the ship, or ejecting into the frigid ocean, a pilot can get so tense that they practically suck the seat cushion up their butt.

Everyone I know has had a ‘night-in-the-barrel,’ a night where they had difficulty beyond normal catching a wire. And after every miss, the tension became more intense. You knew that five-thousand people were watching your every failed attempt, including your peers, your CO, the Skipper of the ship, and most likely the Strike-Group Admiral.

As the recovery tanker you were the last line of hope for a strung-out pilot who had already failed to land a few times. His, or her, nerves were surely shattered and confidence was in their boots. On the last pass before the troubled plane would need to refuel, the recovery tanker would drop down to shadow, or ‘hawk,’ the jet.

 

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You would have to maneuver yourself to time it perfectly so that if the jet failed to land once again you would be just in front of them at 2,000 feet. Then that shaky, panicky pilot could spot you immediately as they cleaned up and climbed to your altitude right behind you. Then they would have to perform an activity just slightly less challenging than landing on a carrier at night, they would have to plug their refueling probe into a basket dangling into the slipstream fifty feet behind the tanker at night, maybe in bad weather, at 2,000 feet. Or, they were going swimming. And the reward for a successful plug and refuel was another look at the boat.

Yay.

I know a guy who had to go around so many times he plugged the hawking tanker three times.  After he finally landed, he was so wrung out he had to be helped from the cockpit.

And after all the drama was complete for the night, the recovery tanker had to come in and land. And there was no one hawking you with extra gas if you couldn’t make it aboard.

I didn’t love flying tanker missions and thankfully I didn’t have to fly many, but the yo-yo, and especially the recovery tanker missions were always gratifying.

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Ranger into the storm

By the time our workups were complete and we headed out on my first deployment I felt very comfortable in the Intruder and in the squadron. There was an undeniable thrill about leaving on my first deployment. It felt very grown-up, even though I was barely twenty-five. I was a junior officer, though we had had enough new guys where I wasn’t an FNG anymore. I had been in the squadron for over a year and become a Landing Signals Officer (LSO) as well, which was a fantastic position of responsibility and a job I thoroughly enjoyed.

After multiple detachments to Fallon and working from the Ranger I also felt extremely comfortable as a member of the Air Wing. Many of my friends from flight school ended up in the same Air Wing, scattered throughout the Tomcat, Intruder, Prowler, and Hawkeye squadrons. It was one of the closest Air Wings I was a part of, with great friendships and camaraderie across all the squadrons.

We pulled into Yokosuka, Japan. I climbed Mt. Fuji after a big night at the O-Club, which ended up being more of a challenge than it should have. Many of us spent five days partying in Tokyo, which was amazing. The ship left Japan for Busan, Korea, spending a few days at sea so the pilots could all fly at night.

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Ranger pulling into Yokuska in 1992 with Paco and VA-155 onboard.

At sea, each pilot is required to get a minimum of one night trap aboard the ship every seven days. One of the lesser-known pains of leaving port after four to five days of hard-charging was climbing into the cockpit for a night ‘re-qual’ all exhausted and hung over.

It was in Busan, on our second day of a planned four-day visit, where the cruise ratcheted up in intensity. The entire Strike Group was emergency recalled to their ships. We were pulling out immediately. Saddam had repeatedly violated the terms of the 1991 Cease Fire agreement. The powers that be demanded a US carrier on scene in the Persian Gulf to keep the dictator in check. The Ranger and her Strike Group sped away from the Korean Peninsula with great urgency.

It seemed there was action to be had again.

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Leadership was so intent to have a carrier presence as soon as possible that Ranger was sent directly through a Category 4 typhoon while en route. All of the other ships in the Strike Group were sent far south in the Indian Ocean to skirt around the massive storm, delaying them by many days. The Ranger rocked like a cork for three straight days. All non-essential activities were suspended, inside and out. The galleys closed and the only food available was sandwiches and cereal.

The ship was rolling so steeply that when you walked along the passageways it felt as if you were walking on the walls at times. We stuck our flight boots under the edges of our mattresses so we wouldn’t roll out of the bunk beds.

I’ll never forget watching the TV footage of the flight deck. During the peak of the storm, the Ranger, an 80,000-ton displacement, 1,000-foot, Forrestal class supercarrier with 70 aircraft on board, was hitting the waves so steeply that we were taking green water over the bow. Not sea spray, not splashes. The bow of the huge ship, with an entire Air Wing worth of airplanes exposed and chained to the deck, was digging into the oncoming waves so deeply that it was briefly submerged.

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Needless to say, after we came out the other side, the planes were a mess. Our incredible maintainers had a week to perform a miracle. They essentially had to rebuild a third of the planes that had been bathed in corrosive salt water. It was one of the most incredible feats of dedication I witnessed in my career. Those guys worked around the clock untill they dropped so that when we arrived in the Gulf we would have up jets to cross the beach with.

The transit from Korea to the Gulf was an amazing feat in itself. The Ranger steamed over 7,000 NM in under two weeks. A trip that would normally have taken three weeks, plus a port call in Singapore, to accomplish.

Sound asleep over Iraq

I’ll never forget the excitement that was building those last few days before we relieved the Independence on-station in the Persian Gulf. The other new guys and I were certain we were going to leap right into combat missions. My new BN, Pauly B, and I were tasked with planning the first mission in country. This was a huge honor and responsibility—or so I thought.

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Ranger relieving Independence on station in Persian Gulf in 1992.

Pauly and I stayed up for two days straight planning a 25-plane mission that involved three KC-135 Air Force tankers and two laps around Southern Iraq. I was so spooled up I couldn’t sleep the night before. Pauly and I briefed a packed ready room full of aircrew from the entire Wing. We were putting Saddam on notice, the Ranger and Air Wing Two were on station and we were ready to play.

The brief ended in the early afternoon and Pauly and I grabbed a quick dinner. We dressed and launched as the sun hung low on the horizon. I was fielding massive waves of excitement and trepidation as we flew toward the tanker rendezvous on the Saudi/Iraqi border. Not only was I leading my first mission in-country, but I had never before tanked off the feared KC-135, known as the ‘Iron Maiden.’

It certainly didn’t help my nerves that night was falling rapidly. If I failed to tank, I would have to return to Ranger in shame. If I damaged the basket by being ham-handed, the entire evolution could be scrapped.

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An A-6E approaches a KC-135E equipped with the dreaded Iron Maiden. The basket, which is attached to the KC-135’s boom via an adapter, is made of metal instead of the softer materials found on other hose and drogue systems. This makes it far less forgiving and it can even wheel around in turbulence and smash into the aircraft causing damage. Hence its other nickname—The Wrecking Ball.

Fortunately, I was able to fight my way through the ordeal and get my gas.

Once the whole package had tanked, Pauly conducted the roll call and we were off, heading into Iraq for our first lap.

I’ve had never seen anything as black as western Iraq. There wasn’t a light on the ground for a thousand miles. It was a moonless night and the stars were the brightest I had ever seen, but they provided no illumination of the earth below. I felt as if we were flying into a black hole.

The Intruder had a basic autopilot, just heading and altitude, and I engaged it once we were on the correct heading. After two sleepless nights and the excitement of the mission and stress of meeting the Iron Maiden under such intense circumstances, I was absolutely drained. My eyes blinked longer and longer until I actually fell asleep in a combat-loaded A-6E Intruder flying through hostile territory while leading a strike package.

Not one of my prouder moments. But as it turned out, Pauly B was dead asleep right next to me, too.

 

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I still get shivers thinking about how long we would have flown on that heading. How far we would have gone. We were pointed directly at Syria, which surely would not have appreciated a U.S. Navy strike package coming close to its border. Ultimately, we were saved by chance, though it nearly gave me a heart attack.

While I was sleeping on a hard ejection seat in a cramped cockpit as deeply as I’ve ever slept in my life, our ALR-67 radar warning receiver (RWR) began a high warble. We had been locked up by a radar. I woke with my heart in my mouth disengaged the autopilot and jinked hard.

I looked down at the ALR-67 screen to determine the direction of the radar and saw that we had been locked up by one of the F-14s in our group. The RIO came up on the secure radio and quickly apologized. It was one of their new guys screwing around with his radar. He hadn’t meant to lock us up.

Pauly and I looked at each other, realizing we had both been asleep and that we had just dodged a virtual bullet. We were wide awake, but it only lasted fifteen minutes before exhaustion set in again. We worked really hard telling dirty jokes and stories for the next four hours till the terror of the night trap was enough to bring us fully awake again.

The remainder of our four months in the gulf was a series of similar patrol missions punctuated by port calls in Dubai. Though I never saw any action in Iraq, I did achieve a measure of detente with the KC-135’s Iron Maiden. She never bit off my probe or shattered my canopy, I never ripped off her basket.

How to kill MiGs in an Intruder

At its prime, which unfortunately coincided with its retirement from service, the Intruder could carry just about every piece of air-to-mud ordnance in the US inventory. And, the AIM-9 Sidewinder.

Being a frustrated fighter pilot, I devised a game plan for how I would get the first Intruder air-to-air kill should any Iraqi MiG-29 be so foolish as to come at us. If we were flying a counter-radar mission our standard loadout was an AGM-88 High-Speed Anti-Radiation Missile (HARM) missile and an AIM-9 Sidewinder.

USN

Silver Foxes’ sister squadron, the Swordsman, seen carrying an AIM-9 Sidewinder during a mission over the Persian Gulf in 1992.

My plan of record was to go nose-to-nose with the Fulcrum, wait till he got to three miles on our nose then shoot the HARM in his direction. The big missile with a huge smoke trail would spook the Iraqi fighter into break turning just in front of me. When he was close enough, I would fire the Sidewinder for the victory.

In the folly of youth, I thought this was an excellent plan and no so secretly hoped an unwitting MiG-29 would come poking around. Thankfully it never became an issue. Though I still like to think it might have worked.

The glory!

Intruding into Somalia

As we were nearing the end of our time in the Gulf, another global hot-spot flared up and Ranger was, once again, tasked with being on-station. In early December of 1992, the feeble government of Somalia completely collapsed and the warlords were battling each other for primacy. The thugs were stealing farmers’ crops immediately after harvest and the country was on the verge of massive starvation. The United Nations was sending in relief but the warlords were stealing those supplies, as well.

The Ranger and Air Wing Two skipped our last port call in Dubai and made for the coast off Mogadishu at high speed. It was exciting to plan for a new mission in a new country. We were initially tasked with providing high cover and close-air-support for the U.N. personnel. The threat to us was minimal, ground fire from technicals—civilian pickup trucks modified with heavy guns. There was also a slim possibility of shoulder-launched SAMs, though none had been reported in the area. For the most part, we expected to operate with impunity, so long as we stayed above the range of the heavy guns.

USN

USS Ranger taking part in Operation Restore Hope in 1992.

The Commander of the Air Wing set the floor at 5,000 feet for normal operations and as low as we wanted for special circumstances. Those included low, fast fly-bys called ‘shows of force’ designed to strike fear into the hearts of bad actors on the ground below. We would come in at 50 feet and 500 knots, sneaking in from behind their position. It was a hugely effective and non-lethal tactic.

We were briefed that the biggest threat to our health was the diseases on the ground in the event we ejected. Since the Somalia visit was unplanned, none of us had received the proper inoculations. I’ll never forget our flight doc briefing the ready room about two additions to our flight gear. Two pre-filled syringes loaded with a cocktail of who-knows-what designed to keep us reasonably safe should our boots actually hit Somali soil. If we punched out, the moment we landed we were supposed to yank out the syringes, pop the tops and inject ourselves straight through our G-suits into the meat of our thighs.

What a trip.

By this time, the various squadron crews in the Wing had become very close. The E-2 Hawkeye guys were not allowed to cross feet-dry. One day, while we were telling them about the incredible views we were enjoying as we flew, they told us they couldn’t see us on their radars after we were a certain distance inland. Naturally, we devised a code word so we could break the 5,000-foot deck and fly low, where the Intruder was meant to be.

Whenever we flew with all junior officer crews, we would skim over the Somali heartland marveling at the change in topography. We saw giraffes and camels and strange chimney-like structures that, after some time, we determined were actually massive anthills. It was depressing to see fertile farm fields filled with water and crops, but devoid of farmers. They were starving because the warlords stole their harvest, not a lack of production.

My most enduring memory from the three weeks over Somalia was flying high cover for the amphibious landing. My BN and I began orbiting at 0400 in the pitch-black directly over the landing spot on the beach, loaded with laser-guided bombs. The BN scanned the shoreline with his FLIR, ensuring there was no opposition while dozens of landing craft came ashore disgorging trucks, APCs, and Marines.

USN

VA-155’s sister squadron seen flying over Somalia during the Ranger’s mission there in 1992.

Over the course of a couple of hours watch the empty beach fill with troops and machinery in an orderly manner and organize into a massive formation. As the sun peeked over the horizon, the headlights came on and the mechanized columns snaked away, dispersing in various directions into the countryside. It was an impressive and slightly emotional display.

A few days later, the Ranger and her Strike Group were released from Operation Restore Hope and we proceeded to Perth, Australia for our first port call in over six weeks.

Six quick interesting thoughts on flying Intruders

1)  The Intruder was super fun to fly low and fast. It was like a Cadillac, smooth, powerful, and stable, with great visibility.

2)  There were a number of landmarks along low-level routes that were traditional check-in-the box items. For instance, a derelict red pickup truck rusting away high in the Cascade Mountains in Washington. My personal favorite was checking the price of unleaded gas on a station marquee just before Winnemucca, Nevada when flying to Fallon.

3)  We had the Pickle Barrel bombing patch. To earn it the pilot had to literally drop a Mk-76 ‘Blue Death’ practice bomb into a barrel on the Boardman, Oregon target range on his first visual delivery of the month. Only one chance every month.

Took me forever to get that damn patch.

 

USN

4)  We had a not-so-stealthy manner of doing awesome fly-bys of the Officer’s Club, which was on the beach at NAS Whidbey Island. Coming back to base you could request an “Intruder Attack.” If the pattern was clear, it was generally approved. Ostensibly, we were conducting a practice bombing run on the valuable assets of the base. In reality, it was a license to do a 200 foot, 420-knot run right over all your buddies heads at the club.

Everyone would come out to watch. It was truly awesome.

5)  Even though we had spin/departure procedures in the event of out-of-control flight, in reality, all the pilot had to do was release any pressure on the stick and rudders. The giant nose was an Earth-seeking magnet. Eventually, you ended up pointed at the dirt and the plane was flying again.

6)  When we flew through clouds and rain at night, as we often did in the Pacific Northwest, we would frequently get arcing blue static electricity across the windscreen called Saint Elmo’s Fire. What was unique to the Intruder was that the refueling probe sticking up prominently between the windscreen panels would also be affected, developing a bizarre cone of blue static electricity pointed aft.

Retiring the Intruder to conquer the Cat

Shortly after returning from the ’92-’93 cruise, VA-155 was decommissioned. It had been planned for a long time so it was no surprise, but it still stung.

Most of the junior officers were dispersed into other fleet squadrons. I was lucky, I got to go to our sister squadron in Air Wing Two, VA-145 The Swordsmen. I showed up for work in April of ’93 only to discover that the Swordsmen had just been put on the chopping block, as well. VA-145 was to be decommissioned five months later, at the end of September.

The nice thing was that they were a good squadron whom we were familiar with and we all flew our butts off in those few months together. The challenge was that now there would be another thirty pilots on the streets looking for a home.

I had not-so-secretly always wanted to fly the Tomcat since my backseat ride as a Midshipman. I spent many weeks putting together a bulletproof transition package to submit to the board, which was ultimately approved. I left for the east coast RAG (Replacement Air Group training squadron) in September of ’93 as excited for a move as I had ever been.

USN

Going through a RAG the second time was almost stress-free, even though I was completing the full, new-guy syllabus. The basic systems were almost identical—thank you Grumman Iron Works—so the academic portion was fairly rote. But quite obviously, despite sharing a huge amount of DNA, the Tomcat was a significantly different beast than the Intruder. And I was absolutely thrilled to the core!

The power differential even in just the F-14A-model with the TF-30 engines was so insanely superior I didn’t stop smiling for three months. The B-model with the F110 engines was just ludicrous.

During my B-model demo hop I was flying in the Whiskey areas, about a hundred miles east over the ocean. The RIO (Radar Intercept Officer) had me go down to 200 feet, accelerate to 450 knots, then pull 4 Gs till I was straight up as I plugged in full afterburner. The plane had no tanks nor rails—slick as a newborn—and she leaped into the sky like a Saturn-5 rocket. Maybe 30 seconds later I was rolling over to level at 50,000 feet while still doing 250 knots.

USN

The air-to-air mission was also completely new to me. But I found it intuitive and creative in a manner that felt very natural. I loved working with the RIO to solve the angles for the long-range intercepts and missile employment and I had waited my whole life to dogfight in the visual arena. If I had been half as skilled at dogfighting as I was enthusiastic, I would have been pretty good.

All in all, I enjoyed the three-year head start in flying fleet jets over my classmates immensely, but all of that came to a screaming halt when it came time to bring the beast aboard the ship, especially at night.

I already had a couple hundred fleet traps in the Intruder and I was an experienced LSO. The ship didn’t intimidate me, in fact I had been the Top Nugget – the best new guy – on my first cruise. But landing the Tomcat was a completely different, and quite humbling, affair.

Where the Intruder was instantly responsive to power, angle of attack (AOA), and glide slope corrections, the Tomcat was anything but. The TF-30 engines had a nasty lag, which made power corrections a combination of guesswork and experience. The wings stuck out to 20 degrees in the landing configuration, which was much more than the Intruder. Combined with a massive, flat fuselage designed in itself to provide significant lift, the airframe had a tendency to float and decelerate when power was removed.

 

USN

Lastly, the Tomcat had a massive hook-to-eye distance meaning that as the pilot sat far head, at the very tip of the jet, maneuvering to keep his eyeballs on the glide-slope, sixty-three feet behind him was a hook which hung about fifteen feet below. With even the slightest movement of the nose, the hook could move many feet at the end of that moment-arm causing the pilot to either catch a 1-wire or completely miss all the wires even if he could still see the meatball in the center.

In short, the F-14 was a huge challenge to land aboard the ship, much less to do it actually well consistently.

Bombcat’s brain trust

A few of my former Intruder peers and I were drafted into VF-213, the Blacklions, after the Tomcat RAG to help them spool up their air-to-ground program. As much as I’d always wanted to be a ‘fighter-guy’ flying nothing but BFM and air-to-air sorties at supersonic speeds, it was my experience in air-to-ground that brought me to the ‘World Famous Blacklions.’

VF-213 was in the process of integrating the LANTIRN targeting pod with the Tomcat and eager to get smart on air-to-mud tactics. The LANTIRN was a massively capable FLIR pod that was easily mounted on a shoulder station. It proved to be an immensely capable pairing between off-the-shelf technology and a legacy air-superiority fighter that extended the F-14’s service life for another fifteen years. With the LANTIRN pod the F-14 became the most capable platform in the Navy to deliver LGBs, far exceeding the F/A-18C’s targeting capabilities, speed, loiter time, and range.

Also, the Tomcat looked a billion times more badass.

USN

Having a thorough background in delivering ground ordnance and weaponeering certainly made for an easy integration into the fighter Ready Room. We former A-6 folks were welcomed and tasked with sharing best practices with the rest of the squadron. But I thirsted for BFM missions more than anything.

Anytime I could get in the air for some high-aspect air combat maneuvering, I was happy. So, I made sure to include an off-target aerial engagement scenario at the end of the bombing hops whenever I could get away with it.

The age of the Intruder had come and gone

The newest jets I ever flew in the Navy were Intruders in VA-155. We began receiving newly winged SWIP (System Weapon Improvement Program) jets as soon as I checked in on board. Many had come right out of the factory, then diverted into the program to upgrade them with new wings and digital integration. I flew jets that had barely ten hours on them, with none of the paint worn off and all of the labels for the buttons and switches still visible.

Yet even with the upgrade in capabilities, the Intruder was not survivable in the modern battlespace. With the advent of the newest Russian SAM systems, the sanctuary of low-flight was removed. The Intruder could carry a massive bomb load, but modern warfare demanded precision over quantity. Anyone could carry LGBs at that point and the introduction of GPS-aided JDAM made delivering ordnance precisely in any weather almost as simple as entering GPS coordinates.

The mission the Intruder had been designed for and had excelled at, all weather, day/night, low-level delivery of tons of ordnance, had disappeared.

USN

 

A huge thanks to Paco for sharing his incredible experiences with us. And make sure to pick up a copy of his new book, Lions Of The Sky.

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The Deactivation Procedure (How my ELF probes were shut off, and my role within the WU-SAP terminated.) Part 1

This is probably my worst article / post on MM. But it is something that I have to get off my system, and preserve. Thus I present it as is, all in it's own terrible ratty configuration.

If life gives you lemons, you make lemonade.

This post / article discusses what my deactivation procedure was like from my point of view. To an outside observer, I was either lying on the bed thrashing about, or just acting strangely. I will do my best to give the reader a full understanding and the full scope of the experience.

These fuckers had to be shut off. You just don’t deactivate a MAJestic operative without shutting them down. That’s a fact jack.

It’s a difficult thing to relate, and even harder to describe. It also tends to get rather strange at times. But this is what happened. And it is here, recorded for prosperity.

Time to change your switch to "off".

.

My deactivation absolutely required that my probes be mothballed.

This was not an easy task, and it required that I be placed in a secure facility, and treated in a special manner .

This section discusses this procedure in the only way that I know how; from the point of view of the person being deactivated.  Because of that, it is confusing and can be misunderstood easily. The reader is reminded that everything that happened is as described from my point of view.

To an outside observer, I was bat-shit crazy.

“Some are born mad, some achieve madness, and some have madness thrust upon 'em.” 

 ― Emilie Autumn, The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls 

From what I know now, this procedure is very straight forward from the point of view of an outside observer.  As such, I will try my best to describe it as such.  But in truth, it was anything but easy.  This was my mind that they were dealing with.  And my perceptions, thoughts, feelings, and memories were involved.  Our experiences are colored by all these things, and thus when they are being tampered with, we have a tendency to become disoriented and confused.

Some basic clarification

I was implanted with three groups / clusters of probes.. As a reminder, I was injected with two (x2) “kits” of devices at NAS NASC Pensacola, Florida. And then afterwards I went through a dimensional portal to another place. It was another location and involved another species. That is where I obtained my EBP device.

In total;

  • EBP – Alien manufacture, and installation.
  • ELF Kit #1 – MAJestic “kit”. Basic.
  • ELF Kit #2 – MAJestic “kit”. Advanced with special functions.

Core Kit I probes activated

This process was akin to “waking me up from a long slumber”.  Because while I was actively aware of my role during the operation of the Core Core Kit #2 probes, I had forgotten everything related to and concerning the Core Core Kit #1 probes. 

I knew, but didn't know. My memories were all very remote and empty. It was like when you opened the door to your house two days before Easter ten years ago. You remember it, but it isn't an "active" memory

To shut me off, and deactivate me, the core Core Kit #1 probes had to be reactivated, and from there, shut down manually, once the Core #2 kit was reset. 

There was no easy way to do it. 

For over 30 years had passed since I was last active under the probes effects.  The physical probes had naturally migrated out of their initial set locations, and I needed to be re-calibrated, and engaged for the new locations of the probes.  (In other words, what was once located at the far left of the upper part of my brain, has now moved diagonally towards the back and a little bit to the mid-center.) How to do this was not clean or pleasant.

For me it was hell.

 “She’ll be coming around the mountain when she comes…
 She’ll be coming around the mountain when she comes…
 She’ll be riding six white horses.
 She’ll be riding six white horses.
 When she comes…”

 -Old Susanna 

It began at lights out. 

It began with “lights out”.

The lights usually shut down at 11:00 pm, but for some reason, the lights out period started at 9:00 pm.  And we all settled down to rest.  I tried to rest.  As I settled down, everything got still and quiet.  I started to drift off to sleep.  My brain waves went from Alpha waves, to beta waves.  My mind started to quiet down.  It was quiet, and peaceful.  But just as I began to drift into sleep; into theta waves, I was suddenly jerked up wide awake. 

Someone, another inmate perhaps, started singing.  This singing was loud and garish.  He sang one old song from the days of the California Gold Rush.  He sang “Old Susanna”.   He wouldn’t let up.  After a full five minutes of this, I was wide awake.  And, he mercifully stopped.

The California Gold Rush (1848–1855) began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California.

"Oh! Susanna" is a minstrel song by Stephen Foster (1826–1864), first published in 1848. It is among the most popular American songs ever written.

I began to rest again. 

And again, as soon as I started to rest and drift off into theta brain wave activity, I was suddenly shaken wide awake.  It was the other man singing “Old Susanna”.  Again this singing continued for about ten more minutes and then stopped.    I was now wide awake.  Tired.  Grouchy, and irritable.  I tried to go back to sleep.

I began to rest again. 

And again, no sooner as I started to rest and drift off into theta brain wave activity, I was suddenly shaken wide awake.  Again, I listened to the crisp old tune of “Old Susanna”.  Again this singing continued for about ten more minutes and then stopped.    I stayed wide awake.  I stayed tired.  I continued to be grouchy, and irritable.  Yet, still, I tried to go back to sleep.

The entire night continued like this.

Each time, as the night wore on, I got angrier and angrier. 

Now, what one must understand is that I was chosen for the program for my ability to control my emotions.  Though my wife might disagree with this appraisal, it was true that I could take a large amount of abuse before I would lash out.  So even though I was terribly tired and exhausted, I didn’t do anything about it.  I just took the abuse in silence.

Until about at around 4:00 am something snapped.

I snapped into a “state”

I cannot relate the exact mechanics of what transpired. 

It reached a point of emotional turmoil, and mental confusion through the accumulation of pressure and the lack of sleep.  In any event, at some point in time, my body and mind just snapped.  That is the best way that I can describe it. 

A feeling of warmth came over me, and I became lucid.  I was no longer sleepy, but alert, calm, and entirely pissed.

Pissed, as in "pissed off" and absolutely furiously angry.

I was frosty calm and pissed off in a way that defies description.

I did not at all have a full recall of my Core Core Kit #1 memories.  But I did have a recall of specialized training that I picked up somewhere (?). 

And that came out in a flood of reactive autonomous movements and gestures.  I found myself exercising and limbering up.  I immediately went into some old martial arts training that I had taken years ago, and I started to organize all my gear.  I made a mental count of everything I owned and this inventory was used for an automatic survival, evasion and escape routine that somehow I had access to.

(How and where did I get this training?  I do not recall.)

Now, in case the reader gets confused, it needs to be clearly pointed out that I did not have any kind of formalized military combat training aside from what I experienced in the Navy at NAS NASC Pensacola. 

Well, mostly that is…

Aside from one or two specialized para-military training camps in Louisiana.  But I put this information here as a full disclosure of my apparent skill sets.I was there because of a"project" that I was involved in. <redacted>  

Just because I had cursory training as a “Swamp Rat” did not make me a professional military fighter or combat soldier.  I only had the most rudimentary training in these fields.  

I was a technical nerd who’s experiences, for the most part, were devoid of any such experiences.

This was a meager amount. 

When you watch television and movies, the heroes all have a great deal of skill and experience with knife fighting, martial arts, weaponry and high duration endurance.  That is fine for the movies, but I was not trained as a navy SEAL, or a member of DELTA team. 

I was more or less a highly technical individual, who through an array of events ended up in this program.  I was not, am not, nor will I ever be a combat fighter.  Yet, for some reason, this persona; a persona of just such a swarthy fellow, took hold of my very being. 

I became that person. 

How, and why, I have no idea.

I started to act… peculiarly.

All of this was not my personality.

At least nothing that I would associate with myself for the last three decades.

What was most astounding was that I started yelling in Chinese.  Now, today, my Chinese linguistic skills are much better than then.  But one must understand that, at that time, I couldn’t tell the difference from between a pair of shoes from a carrot in Chinese.  I possessed absolutely zero Chinese linguistic skill. 

But yet, I found myself shouting in Chinese.  I started to implore the guards for information.  I started to ask them what was going on.  I did so in Mandarin Chinese!

你为什么这样做呢?我在哪里?做了什么我做错了?


Not that anyone else knew what I was saying.  But, for some reason, my automatic reaction; one that I am loathe to recall here, kicked in.  It involved a number of automatic behaviors that I automatically started to adopt. 

These included a [1] calm composure, [2] the ability to think and reason in certain defined patterns, [3] the ability to speak in Chinese, and [4] the knowledge of what to do and how to handle the circumstances that came before me.  It was almost like I was programmed to react in a certain manner under a certain series of events or circumstances.

This concluded until about 6:00 am. 

When I finally was able to rest.  At that time, the staff surrounding my cell and barracks also shut down and left for home.  As they gathered their papers, books and possessions, they commented about the night.  They complained about the costs, but also commented as to how unique the experience was. 

They were curious about me, and they wanted to find out more as to what I was involved in.  They joked about the event, saying to the effect that that was certainly strange and weird.  That it was unexpected that I would know and speak Chinese, but that proved that something that they were told was correct.  They stated that they would keep me under special care and evaluation until the team arrived from Washington to finish the work.

For me, however, everything was different. 

I turned into someone different.

Now, I was someone else.  I was like a robot.  In truth, I was in-between activation’s.  Neither my core Core Kit #1 nor my Core Core Kit #2 probes were apparently activated.  But somehow, through stress and situations they were able to induce upon me some kind of repressed reactive persona. 

This was unexpected by everyone. 

It was certainly unexpected by me. 

I had no idea that this stuff was locked away inside my head.  It was surprising to the staff at the prison as well.  While the doctor and the authorities were apparently told that I would have to be handled in a certain special way, they didn’t believe that anything would actually, really occur.  They thought that it would be just nonsense.  But sure as the day is bright, the manuals were correct and I snapped into a secondary persona.  One that was not to be trifled with.

At this point in time, I was in a “survival” and “protective” persona.  (I found myself walking with “direct registering” and operating in a most observant manner. )

Direct Registering

Walking like a feline in a specific prescribed manner designed for silence and readiness. Felines walk in a stalking silent mode where their hind paws fall inside the place of their forepaws, minimizing noise and visible tracks, while ensuring more stable footing.

A different personality.

This was something that I was unaware I possessed, and the only way and place that I could of obtained these skills was during the week-long absence through the dimensional portal on the base years ago.  In hindsight, I actually now possessed a total of four modes of operation. 

They were;

  • Normal human
  • “Survival” and “Protective” Persona
  • Core Core Kit #1 Activation
  • Core Core Kit #2 Entanglement with the drone

Lord only knows how many personas I have locked away in my brain.  

What did the fucking government do to me?  Are there still other personas that are lying dormant ready to be released under a series of aggressive external stimuli?  I do not know.

I simply do NOT know.

At this time, I was still quite confused as to what was going on.  While I understood where I was and what I was doing there.  All my subsequent history related to the US Navy was still a complete blank. 

I had no idea about the connection between my incarceration and that of my involvement in the MAJestic USAP program.  At that point, I was convinced that it was due to an overly zealous DA, and an unfortunate series of personal events on my behalf.

Turning on the probes

“Courage doesn’t happen when you have all the answers.   It happens when you are ready to face the questions you have been avoiding your whole life.”

― Shannon L. Alder

I spent the entire day in the cell.

.

I spent the entire day in the cell. 

A fore-taste of things to come. Eh?

When it came time for me to eat, I was lead out of my cell by following a special procedure.  In this procedure, six guards came to my cell, they opened the door with an elaborate call out procedure, and each one took up a special role.  One would call out “Prepare to blow the door”, while another would say “On my count, blow the door”, and another would count “3, 2, 1”.  Then they would unlock the door while saying “Blowing the door”.  I think all of this was completely unnecessary.  But they weren’t taking any chances.  When the door was opened, two guards got on both sides of me and grabbed my arms and back collar.  Then they led / carried me out of the cell. 

Blowing the port.
They would line up on both sides of the port and formalize the egress procedure so that I would be more easily controlled when they took me from my cell.

.

While I told them this wasn’t necessary, they told me that this procedure was necessary for everyone’s safety and I had just get along with the program.  So I shrugged my shoulders and said OK.  And thus, I was led to chow hall this way, and returned back to my cell in this matter for reasons of safety for myself and for other inmates.

For most of my evaluation I was brought to mess hall and from it in this manner.  But that is not all that was done. 

When I arrived in the mess hall, I was placed at a table along the wall, and there, standing along the wall was about fifteen guards.  I couldn’t do anything without them subduing me. 

But of course, I did nothing.  I was not crazy, unwise or stupid.  I knew the odds, and why should I do anything anyways?  There was no benefit for me.  The wisest thing for me to do was to follow the program and track that was established for me to its conclusion.

They also heavily sedated me. 

I alone, of all the inmates, was given a glass of orange juice.  And that liquid was severely laced with a medicine known as Chlorpromazine. 

Thioridazine (Mellaril (DE, BD, ET, ID, BR), Melleril.  

It is used in the treatment of schizophrenia.  

But it is also used to control people with behavioral problems because of the way it causes the body to react to external stimuli. 

It works on a variety of receptors in the central nervous system, producing potent anticholinergic, antidopaminergic, antihistaminic, and antiadrenergic effects. Both the clinical indications and side effect profile of CPZ are determined by the broadness of its action: its anticholinergic properties cause constipation, sedation, and hypotension but also help relieve nausea. 

It also has anxiolytic (anxiety-relieving) properties. 

Its antidopaminergic properties can cause extrapyramidal symptoms, such as akathisia (restlessness, aka the 'Thorazine shuffle' where the patient walks almost constantly, despite having nowhere to go due to mandatory confinement, and takes small, shuffling steps) and dystonia.

From the moment I drank this orange juice to all subsequent servings, I knew exactly what was going on. 

My speech became slurred, and while my mind remained sharp and clear, the ability for me to move my body was severely retarded.  For instance, I would want to stand up, but the ability for me to move my legs was severely repressed.  Instead, I would just sit there trying to move, but unable to do so. 

Chlorpromazine

.

It was not at all a pleasant experience.  But rather uncomfortable.  I believe that they gave me a rather high dosage of this chemical, and they kept me sedated throughout my evaluation period.

Since I was under an ELF field, I could easily see the cavitation effects while laying on the bed in my cell.

This period of waiting while under the effects of the drug, and being sedated was short lived.  After two days, the team of experts arrived from Washington, and my deactivation procedure began. 

The truth is that I assumed that they were from Washington, D.C.  They could have been from anywhere.  What I did know was that they were not local to the state where I was, and thus they had to be flown in from out of state.  Their names, and point of origin, as well as their backgrounds are all unknown to me.

Retirement Team flown in

"[UFOs are] considered top secret by intelligence officers of both the Army and the Air Forces."   

--From a declassified 1949 FBI document from the San Antonio FBI office, to J. Edgar Hoover.

I knew something was “afoot” when I was moved from my upper tier cell, to a (special) first floor cell. 

This refers to the knowledge that something is occurring behind the observed scenery, which might directly affect someone or something.

This was cell number 7. 

It was a “special” cell. 

To an outside observer it was a cell like any other.  But this one was quite different.  For starters, the wall graffiti was different.  In most cells, and wall graffiti involved curse words, stick figures showing genital areas and perhaps a statement about prison life.  Like “I’ll be back!”, and “The food here blows”. However, this cell was different. 

The graffiti in this cell was unique.  Instead of curse words, there were words related to thoughts and actions.  For instance, next to the rack was the phrase “Be careful what you say.”  And, over the door, were the words that stated “Do nothing stupid.”  And near the sink, and the air vent, and the foot of the bed were drawings of three triangles.  The drawings showed the triangles lined up in a row.

Three triangles.
Three triangles with a line drawn through them.

.

They had kept me heavily sedated on Chlorpromazine because I was apparently unpredictable and dangerous.  It was a safety precaution, though I told them repeatedly that I wasn’t going to do anything.  The purpose of this cell was to put me into a specially constructed cell that was functionally intended for the ELF decommissioning procedure.

The cell was on the first floor and it was a little different than the others. 

One of the problems that I had while the ELF filed was turned on was the heat that was being generated by my body.  So this cell had an extra high capacity fan that was used to exhaust the air quickly.  It was also grounded as a kind of faraday cage.  However, the sink was not properly grounded, and was disconnected from the metal supports due to corrosion.  Therefore whenever I went near it I would get a most terrible shock.

Also in this cell were some graffiti and doodles that you would find in any cell.  Except this cell had the three triangle nomenclature that I recognized so well.  It also had graffiti specifically pointing the locations of the microphone and the closed circuit camera. 

Though I didn’t need the graffiti to show me these items. 

Perhaps the most notable thing about this particular cell was outside of it.  Directly outside the cell was the three embedded triangular feducial markings.  If I were to stand up straight at the door to the cell, I would be able to focus directly at the feducials.

When looking out of the door to my cell I could see two individuals discussing things with the Captain of the guards, and the head of the Prison System’s Psychiatric Unit.  They were wearing suits and ties, which is quite different from that of most white color employees local to the region.  Due to the heat, most local white collar employees tended to wear collared short sleeve polo shirts.  I couldn’t hear what they were talking about, but they would occasionally look over my way and continue talking like I was a slab of beef or some other object of little importance.

I could talk directly to the ELF team

With my probes now fully engaged and my cell irradiated with ELF radiation everything that I would say was heard directly to the ELF control station (in Minnesota) I could talk and they would answer me. Not only that, but I could whisper and they would be able to talk back to me.

It’s all pretty odd. And no we did not get “chummy”.

For instance, I told the on-site staff at the prison facility to adjust the amplitude of the gain on the ELF waves, and I was able to tell them it’s “size” relative to my cell. They had the gain really high and I took it down about six steps and then one step up. (For personal comfort.)

The Deactivation Procedure

It was around 6:00pm when the deactivation procedure began.  I had been given an extremely large dose of medication during dinner and it was just then beginning to affect me. 

I was sitting on my rack, wanting to lie down, but being unable to do so easily.  Eventually I was able to collapse onto the bed, but I did not lie down comfortably, but rather laid on my bed in a half-on, half-off manner.  My legs were still in a sitting position, but my head was on the pillow.  I laid on my side with my arm extended half off the bed.

I was in a near comatose state. The Thorazine was hitting me hard.

Cell #7 in the Evaluation Barracks.

.

I immediately knew that there was “something going on” whenever I felt an electric wave travel through my body and when I looked up at the ceiling, I “saw” cavitation effects. 

Cavitation is the visual effect inside my visual cortex that indicates harmonics formed by the ELF waves in a confined space.  In the test chamber at China Lake NWC I could see the effects though they were obscured by the confusing array of the grey triangles that dotted the walls. 

But here in the white cinderblock cell, they were obvious.  They appeared to me as waves and rows of grey worm like distortions. 

While I still didn’t remember anything of my relevant past, it seemed quite familiar and strikingly disturbing.  Losing control of one’s mind, and the observation of what could be hallucinations, is not something that you want to experience in prison.

That evening, as I relaxed on my rack, I suddenly saw the sudden bright flashes of light in my head.  Just as quickly, in a short span of time, numbering in the milliseconds, a new vision flooded my visual cortex. 

With it…

… came an awareness.

But it wasn’t long before I really and truly and completely knew what was truly going on. 

For in a short period of time I lost all external vision and the ELF calibration screen flooded my visual cortex.  And, while I am kind of ashamed to admit it, again I was intrigued by the red edges of the pastel landscape. 

The ELF calibration screen filled my eyesight and consisted of "hills" and "valleys" upon an undulating terrain map that I would be able to navigate a reticle upon. 

Without thinking too deeply about it, I started to look and peer intently into the imagery.  Without thinking, I said out loud, “I wonder what those red cracks are”, and was equally surprised when a loud voice flooded my mind. 

An unknown man sternly replied “Shut up!  Concentrate on centering the reticle like you were trained to do!”

Ah, such reminders. 

Unknown to my handler, this was an exact duplicate of the same event decades earlier.  There, I also made inquiries of the reddish edges.  And then, they also told me to ignore those colors and concentrate on the task before me. 

All of this became evident.  The true and actual awareness flooded my mind when the pastel map appeared.  This is a map that I hadn’t seen for over 30 years.  It was so long ago I forgot all about it.  While the life with the interaction of the drone was known to me and understood, the life of the ELF core kit was forgotten. 

The last time I had used it was for some minor tasks back in the 1990’s, when I was recalled for some domestic activities.  At that time, I was temporarily tasked to <redacted>.

The reticle on the map was terribly out of place.  It was way out to the left of where it should have been, and, I used the time to put it back where it belonged.  As soon as the reticle went back in place, my normal eyesight returned.  But, I could easily tell that I was in the presence of the ELF field.  I knew, somewhat, what was going on.  Indeed, I could see the cavitation effects in the cell all around me.  And, to my amazement, but not without some concern, dolefully centered the reticle in the proper area.  And the pastel map disappeared and I was back in my evaluation cell.

I looked up at the ceiling and saw the cavitation effects clearly.  Now, the reader might think that I would have full and immediate recall of everything that I had ever experienced at this point.  And that I would also understand what I was going through and why.  But the truth was that I did not.  I was confused, a bit scared, and completely in a quandary over this entire situation.

It truthfully took me at least two days to fully recall what was going on and why.  In the meantime, I had a deactivation procedure to endure, and at this state, the hell was only just starting.  As I recall, I was only finally to put all the pieces together when I looked outside the door to my cell.  For there, directly opposite to my door, was the triangle shaped feducials embedded in the cinder-block wall of the intake facility!

What it sort of looked like.

.

Was I actually a Sex Offender?

“The greatest prison that people live in is the fear of what other people think.”

—Unknown

Actually, the first task, once the deactivation team arrived, was to meet the qualifications and expectations of the facility itself.  Those expectations were as I discussed earlier.  It was, after all, why I signed the waiver of my Constitutional rights. 

Our founders set up a brilliant system which has served the country well for over two centuries. What people seem to forget is our system of government wasn’t set up to create a new set of parental authority figures for the public. 

The entire intent behind the Constitution was to create a series of checks and balances to restrain government from becoming too powerful and working against the interests of the public. 

Government’s primary role in America is supposed to be to protect the Constitution and defend the cherished civil liberties defined within it. 

Today, it does precisely opposite. 

Our government isn’t just corrupt though. Indeed, the primary function of government at the moment is to protect status quo criminals from the public, not the other way around. This is why the rich and powerful are never held to account, which is in turn why it continues to get worse and worse.

Was a danger to the community as a Sexual Offender?  Was I a [1] pedophile or a [2] predator that would prey on people or little children?  Did I have a [3] secret history that others need to be told about?  Have I [4] hurt someone in my deep, dark, remote past?  They needed to know just how [5] licentious I actually was.  These questions needed to be answered.

From the point of view of everyone there, with the exception of the two “experts” that were flowing in to supervise this procedure, no one knew the answer. 

So they had to run the necessary tests to determine this.  But, unlike many other inmates, this would be much easier for them to find out, because, here (in my case) they have a hard-wired conduit direct to my brain and they could actively monitor how my brain would react to thoughts, and images placed there.

Not to mention that the Navy, or the MAJestic arm of the Navy, had a complete record of everything that I did.  From phone records for the last thirty years, candid photographs of me and my wife in hotel rooms (!) and in our house (!), a completely compiled dossier of my medical history and a listing of every (MAJestic) operation that I had ever participated in. 

Though, I am sure that that dossier would not of been shared with anyone outside of the MAJestic organization.

MAJestic knew EVERYTHING about me. 

But, the State where I was incarcerated did not. 

The team had to follow the law, [1] determine how severe a “Sex Offender” I actually was, while at the same time [2] permitting MAJestic to “disable my lethalness” and render me “inoperable” as an agent.

Most people are not aware of this, but not all "sexual offenders" are the same. While everyone gets classified as a Sexual offender, they have a secondary rating that is used to determine their frequency of monitoring and their restrictions.

The scale goes from a 1, which is a minor level offender, up to a 3 / 4 (depending on the state where you live) as the worst of the worst.

While, I am sure, the State officials did not have the clearances to know everything that I was involved in, they did have the right to know my medical, mental and criminal histories as compiled by MAJestic.  And that, it was certain, was enough to dispel any doubts about my threat level assessment.   Though, since they did contact the MAJestic authorities (somehow, maybe they were notified by triggering an access query for my records), they realized that I was “somehow” connected to the US government in some high capacity level. 

What they thought it was is anyone’s guess.  However, they probably envisioned something that Hollywood would dream up.

CIA scene from one of the Jason Bourne movies.

.

That’s the way it works you know.  We can only envision what we have been exposed to.  For most unusual events, the exposure experience is “Hollywood”.

Again, while the procedure was complicated in actual implementation, the core basic theory behind it was quite simple.  My visual cortex would be flooded with an image or series of images, or video movie routines.  How my body reacted to those images would be noticed and recorded.  If my penis would become erect that, for instance, would show the possible potential for interest in that picture or image. 

Good luck with that.  Once a man gets older, spontaneous erections are very rare.  In fact, any kind of erection is a rare event.

Though in truth, they did not need to observe me get erections by. looking at pictures. All they needed to do is to monitor my brainwaves. The Thorazine reduced my body to “sluggish jello” while keeping my mind clear and focused. Yet at the same time, by emotions were all very calm. Thus, any reaction to images that I would see (and after all they had a complete pathway to my visual cortex through the ELF Kit #1 probes) could be observed by the monitoring of my brainwaves.

But since they now had the probes inside my head they could actually determine is the image was pleasurable or disgusting to me.  And it was that by which they measured my interest. 

There was no running away from it. They could tell, through the reactions in my brain, what interest that I had in sex, children, and images and whether or not I had any tendencies to harm, hurt or bother others in pursuit of said interests.

“If you would know a man, observe how he treats a cat.”

-Robert Heinlein in The Door into Summer.

In hindsight, it is interesting that I was arrested for the unproven potential for having an image on a computer that I owned, but whether this was an indicator of my threat to society was another matter entirely. 

Actually the mere presence of a file on a computer, by itself, does not mean that it was used or accessed by a person.  That has to be determined by computer forensics.  There, an IT professional can determine when the file was last accessed, what program accessed it, and for how long it was accessed.  A longer period of forensic study can identify how the file got onto the computer, and when.  But the mere presence of an illegal photo does not imply that the owner of the computer used, viewed or even knew that that file existed. 

The same is true for a farmer who owns 1000 acres of land.  The presence of two or three marijuana plants on this property does not imply that he was aware of them, cultivated them, or had any interest in growing them. 

But it is easy for a Congressman to make a law saying that if a marijuana plant was on your property, you were De Facto a cultivator of that drug.

The criminal and legal systems must be specifically worded and carefully followed specifically with neutral intent towards obtainment of the truth, and whether true criminal intent was present. 

But all that is meaningless. 

A direct interpretation of the law simply states that if you possess an item that is illegal, you have broken the law.  The old saying that “Intent is 9/10’s of the law” is an obsolete phrase that has no place in modern American law.

This entire theory is disgusting and disturbing to me.  Does that mean that if I watched a movie about Hitler that I was a follower of his policies?  Or that if someone flashed a picture to me in a mere fraction of a second that I would treasure that image and cultivate it in my mind over and over again, eventually becoming a dangerous maniac? 

Most human brains operate at 4 Hz.  Most computers operate at 3 GHz.  Or in other words, flashing an image on the computer screen at 3Gz cannot be seen by the human brain.  

The only way that it would be seen is if the picture froze in place for 4 x 1024,000,000 Hz.  (1GHz = 1024 MHz).  That is a real long time for a computer.  

That is why computer forensics is so important.  To watch and look at a picture, humans tend to look, or gawk at it for substantially longer than their brains work.  Suppose it would take 30 seconds, or in this case 30x4x1024,000,000 computer cycles at least.  

A true prosecutor should need to show that the image was OBSERVED rather than just a file on a computer.  In any event, this is all academic.  The law says one thing, and if you have a file on your computer, it doesn’t matter how it got there or whether you looked at it or not.  

You become guilty.

Obviously the laws and the system behind them were more akin to a huge dragnet rather than a surgical investigative attack on dangerous community predators.  But that is how the state dealt with these issues, and I was caught in the system.  My place was not to wonder why, but rather to survive the ordeal as they “investigated” me.

This is an interesting subject, and one that I have spent many years considering.  That is because the systems in place currently in the United States, on both the State and the Federal level seem to violate the core principles of common law.  

In those principles, a law is something that protects the rights and privileges of another. 

For instance, you can’t steal someone’s horse because it is a violation of another’s property ownership rights.  Or you cannot kill someone because it is a violation of their God-given right of existence.  

So, this being said, what property right, personal right, or sovereign right of a nation is being enforced by those laws related to possession of a banned substance or article?  

As it stands, the law is contorted into something else entirely.  In this convolution, it is the [1] premise of the potential for wrongdoing that is [2] evidenced by the suggestion of improper thought, through [3] possession of a banned object that is the driving force behind the laws as written.
Scene from “A Clockwork Orange”.
When a person is revolted, or shocked, or experiences emotion, the body chemistry changes. If you are in love, your body becomes filled with emotion. If you are in fear, your body is also filled with different chemicals. And dogs can sense this. With the proper equipment it can also be measured remotely.

.

In any event, a period of time was devoted to determining whether I was a threat to society based on my body’s reactions to injected visual imagery into my cerebral cortex.

Actually by measuring the activity in my  anterior dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, a region that is involved in suppressing emotional responses, and the inferior frontal gyrus, an area responsible for evaluating social behavior and cooperation, the investigators could get a much better understanding of my individual motivations than only just relying on my more primitive cerebral functions.  Luckily for me, I have over thirty years of ELF monitoring of this, but I don’t think that anyone told the medical staff at the diagnostic facility about that.

While I lay there on the rack, images started to flood my mind.  Each image enveloped my entire visual cortex and paused there for five seconds.  Apparently, it took from three to five seconds to determine how my body would react to these images. 

It began easily enough with “soft” images.  There were pictures of trees, plants, zoo animals, ocean scenes, fish, clouds and other nice and pleasant imagery.  Then, they slowly started to insert pictures of girls.  Some clothed, some in bathing suits, and some nude. 

In short order the pictures started to diversify. 

Some were pictures of thin girls, some were girls with large mammary breasts, and some were pictures of girls with long legs.  Some pictures included children, while other pictures included animals. 

Over a short period of time, the pictures became more diversified.  There were pictures of piles of shit, urine and feces.  There were pictures depicting torture, rotting things, and pictures of extreme violence. 

There were totally repugnant pictures and pictures of absolute pleasantry.  All of my reactions to each of these pictures were then assigned a series of values and were mapped out on a grid. 

The grid was a graphical display of my overall sexual interests. 

In it, various characteristics, regarding my heartbeat, electro-biological chemistry, and physical reactions were mapped and put down upon the display.  For me, as I lay there listening in on the discussions surrounding me, was rather plain and boring.  I had a sharp “drop off”, as most normal humans would, regarding death, violence, feces, and odd sexual acts. 

I also had a normal transition of interest from beautiful, to cute, to attractive, to stimulating.  This gradient needed to be present, for that defines discernment.  This is a characteristic of a normal childhood, and thankfully I had a solid grounding in that area.  

I had no sexual interest in children, but rather a kind of parental protectiveness seemed to emerge during the evaluation.  I had no interest in pursuing anything or a desire to “still” or “hold” the image.  This was indicative of a general apathy towards possession and possessiveness.  That was certainly not a trait of a sexual predator. 

I held strong emphatic reactions that clearly showed that I was not a sociopath, nor did I exhibit odd thinking or reasoning patterns in my brain that were indicative of mental instability in one form or the other.  I was surprisingly normal, perhaps a little bit sexually conservative (maybe even embarrassingly puritan in some ways), but aside from that rather normal.

Anyways, that what they said, and I heard them say that. How would you like to be classified as “Puritan” in your sexual interests?

Furthermore, the graph most certainly showed areas in which I had a great deal of sexual attractiveness towards.  Not every man is the same, and for me, it appeared, that I had a strong preference in curvy woman with large chests and long legs.  I was also fond of wide shoulders (?) for some unknown reason. 

My tests showed a predilection towards woman who would be able to have these physical features, which involved girls as young as in their early 20’s, and as old as I was.  But there was a rather severe drop off as they approached the age that I would consider to be my daughter.  At that point, a different series of emotions came into play with were of a parental protective nature.

All in all, my tests were normal.

In comparison with others who went through this evaluation with me, (apparently) my graph was smaller and more limiting.  Others were not so disturbed by certain kinds of sexual positions, or actions.  They also tended to be “more open minded” about same-sex fetishes than I was. 

They said that I was “bland” and “boring”. How would you like to be considered to be “plan vanilla”, “bland and boring” regarding sex?

My graph was indicative of a rather defined line that separates repulsion, neutrality, and attraction.  For me, my graph was indicative of “traditionally oriented sexual attractiveness”.  In no way was there any hint of an interest in child porn, sex with a child, voyeurism, necrophilia, bondage, S &M, observing violent sexual fantasies, nor anything related to sex outside of a more or less male to female orientation.  I was just conventional; plain and ordinary.

This test lasted approximately five hours.  And the conclusions were final, and without question.  I was [1] not a threat to society, nor was [2] I at all interested in any kind of sexual activity with a child. It also showed that [3] I was not violent or enjoyed violence in any way.

Upon conclusion of this part of the test, there was an apparent break, and I was able to lay back and relax.  I just listen to them discuss my brain and interests.  Apparently, somehow they were able to see the images that they placed in my visual cortex.  And they commented on them.  Some would say that the picture was funny, or disgusting, or really attractive.  It was an interesting dialog, but I didn’t care.  I was tired, as it took a lot of work to endure the test, and I was very tired, as well as very hot.  During the test, the probes in my brain generate heat, and unless I am able to cool down, it could kill me.  So I just laid back, and drifted off to sleep with my head buried into my soaking-wet pillow.

What did I recall?

Since it was now determined that I was not a danger to anyone, and thus the sole remaining procedure remaining was to retire my probes. 

This should have been rather easy, you would think. 

You would just turn the “on” switch to “off”.  But that isn’t the way it worked, and for me, it was neither simple, nor easy.

In order to first shut down the probes, there had to be a [1] complete reawakening of brain, followed by a [2] downloading (of sorts) of what I knew and experienced, followed by a [3] re-compartmentalization of memories.  This was to be conducted in a certain way, because if not done so properly, certain memories would persist, while others would be erased. 

Thus a dangerous condition could inadvertently be created. 

It could possibly create a person with patches of memories, and skill sets, all completely out of their proper context.  And that is a dangerous precedent. Just like “Nomad” in the Star Trek series…

The Changeling (1968)

.

Ye Gods!  I might relive the “The Changeling (1967)” episode from Star Trek.  Where some memories that I should of forgotten be remembered, and others that I should of remembered be forgotten.  The reality of a bastardized memory stack was a frightening possibility.

A malfunctioning space probe, Nomad, comes aboard the Enterprise, mistaking Kirk for its creator. The half-earth, half-alien probe thinks it has orders to sterilize imperfect life-forms, and the crew has to find a way to keep it under control before it kills them.  

Its original orders were to find life-forms, but it had merged with another probe whose orders were to sterilize imperfect minerals.  

When combined, and placed out of the proper context, a hybrid creature; Nomad, was created.  Whose goal and objective was the perverted “Find life-forms, and sterilize all imperfect life-forms”. 

-https://www.hulu.com/watch/283817

The second task took all day, and began right after breakfast the next day.  Again, like I had been all week, I was provided a large dose of medication to control me, and I just went to my rack and lay down. 

This was an important exercise, as all my core Core Kit #1 interlocks were removed, and all my memories were made accessible to me. 

From an observer in the barracks, nothing at all was going on, but that was completely illusionary.  To everyone else, I was alone, lying down on my rack. But in my mind a pure cascade of thoughts and images flooded my mind. 

Not only that, but the activation protocol was engaged.  That meant a full power ELF field, and a constant and steady background cadence was present to my ears.

A steady and constant cadence was played in my head. It was constant and it lasted for the ten days or so that I was being evaluated.

While I understood the purpose of the pastel map and the movement of the reticle, I still did not have any recollection of my memories about the ELF Core Kit.  That would only come about once my memories were unlocked. 

To unlock my memories a sequence of commands must be issued from the control booth external to my body.  I cannot do that myself.

The diagnostic screen appeared briefly.  In a flash I could see the screen overlaid in my field of sight.  I watched as the icons were clicked and activated in quick succession.  Whomever was doing this was quite skilled in doing so.  This overlay and the resultant operation passed away quickly, perhaps under three minutes, and then the screen disappeared.  Then everything went calm again.

And then, slowly, one by one, (all the rest of) my memories returned.

Unlike the memory retrieval at NAS China Lake, this was a much more arduous process.  The reasons for this, perhaps, were many.  For one, a much larger period of time had elapsed.  When I was at China Lake, a period of around three years had elapsed. 

But at this time, a far larger period of time had elapsed and this period of time was over thirty years. 

As time wears on, the memories become embedded deeper and deeper in the records of one’s past.  As such, it becomes comparatively more difficult to retrieve them.  Additionally, other memories, not repressed, crowd out the significance of the repressed memories.  Thus, a sorting and prioritizing technique must be employed by the agent to figure out exactly what was transpiring, what had transpired, and why.  This was not easy, and as the pieces to the huge puzzle of my life started to come together, I was at times amazed, shocked, and disgusted as to the kind of life that I had lived.

Pieces fell into place. Connections were made, and mysteries that I wondered about (Like “why did I do that?) all started to make sense.

As these memories flooded my consciousness, somehow the operators were able to observe the snatches that would flutter by in my visual cortex.  I was being monitored, and as these memories arose others would view them, and at times comment on them.

From my perspective

At this time, the world that I was involved is was quite unique and unusual.  What I was experiencing; what I was seeing and hearing was oblivious to the outside world.  I was trapped inside a world of my own. 

My brain saw and heard sounds and visions that only I could see and experience.

In my mind, I could [1] hear the chatter from the ELF control staff.  I could [2] listen to my handlers, the [3] program managers and the [4] operators at their stations.  It was like I was on speaker-phone and I could (judging from the volume and the echoes in the room) determine their relative positions within the ELF control room.

I could also [5] overhear the local medical staff in the diagnostic facility talking about me to the [6] “experts” flown in to evaluate me. 

I could also [7] hear the rest of the barracks, which was now just beginning to be repopulated with other inmates.  All of this confusion passed through my senses with an [8] underlying “awakening” cadence that was put in place by my handlers.

Reactions of the others

Of course, to everyone else in the barracks I was a raving loon.  I was talking to myself, conducting focusing exercises to center upon the feducials.  I looked like a complete nut.  But something else was also happening.  Others were listening to me.  The doctors and the guards were listening in on the chatter with my handlers.  Some of the inmates were also listening in. 

It was because of these alert few that directed the attention of the other inmates to what was going on and to whom I really was.  In a short period of time, almost the entire barracks knew who I really was, and why I was truly and actually there. 

This was absolutely unexpected.  No, not everyone knew.  But there was a significant number of both guards, and inmates that knew that I was a “special” inmate and that I had a “special” background. 

They also knew that I was there for reasons other than why I was there “officially”.

To show their respect for me they would honor me.  To be honest, the method of showing honor to me was alien to my experiences.  They were obvious respectful gestures, but I had never experienced them before.

Respect and other strange observances

All through the day, various inmates, and guards as well, would come near to my cell.    They would stand next to the door.

Everyone (in the barracks) knew what was going on.  They all knew that I was being “retired” or in prison for some kind of special government operation. As such, they all showed me respect.

They wouldn’t salute or anything like that, but they would stand tall with their back straight.  They would hold a small torn piece of paper in their palm.  In that paper were three letters.  The initials of the person honoring me.  They then folded the small ½ inch long sized scrap of paper into a butterfly shape and softly blow it towards my cell. 

This went on all day.  And when I returned back from dinner at the chow hall, I found that someone had taken all the tiny slips of paper, now numbering 60 or 70 and put them in the grill vent in my cell.  I can tell you that while it was certainly an uncomfortable experience being in prison, and getting accused like I was, to have this level of respect and support was meaningful and import to me. 

It touched me.

(I do not know the origins of this ritual.  I have never seen it before, and it was not part of my training in the Navy.  But the standardization of it was suggestive of some kind of military ritual, of which I knew nothing of.  To this day it remains a mystery to me.  How could dozens of strangers all act uniformly towards me in this way?  I do not know.)

During this entire time period, as long as the cadence was on, and they were reviewing my experiences, I tended to act, talk, and walk differently.  It was as if I was still in training in the Navy.  It was like I was a drill instructor or some other kind of military automation.  I couldn’t help it.  I automatically took on that persona, and that is who I was and what I was during this period of time.

Scrolling through my memories

I am sure that there were a lot of interesting memories tucked away inside my brain.  After all, I not only operated as a normal human, but I also shared my experiences with an entangled drone. 

All of my memories for the over thirty years that I was entangled are now shared experiences and shared memories. 

But, what they wanted to do was look for specific memory sets, isolate them, and sever my access to them.

When the command to unlock it was received, the memories came back in a flood.  Apparently, the longer the memories lie dormant within the brain the more painful they are to extract them. 

Correction. It is not necessarily a painful experience, than it is a jarring one. 

For with each memories comes with its own associated emotions.  The memories of what it was like in flight school, as well as the time of being a newlywed at China Lake all flooded my body. 

To handle this flood of memories the beat tempo was broadcast to my auditory center.  This helped me to handle the memories and emotions.  There were different kinds of tempos.  This was a military march beat with underlining references towards the song that I selected as my favorite song back when I first signed up into the program. 

This tempo caused me to maintain a military bearing just like I maintained it at NAS NASC Pensacola, Florida.  Of course, the rest of the inmates thought that I was a little bonkers.  But the team who was deprogramming me knew exactly what was going on at the time.

Reviewing the “Discovery” paperwork

In Law, “discovery” is the exchange of legal information and known facts of a case. Think of discovery as obtaining and disclosing the evidence and position of each side of a case so that all parties involved can decide what their best options are – move forward toward trial or negotiate an early settlement.

-What Is Discovery? – Legal Meaning

Critical to the identification of whether I was a criminal or not, was a reviewing of the “Discovery” documentation that was used by the DA and prosecutor to convict me. 

Correction. They did not use it to convict me. They threatened me with 80 years in Prison that would be determined by a panel of Jurists from rural Arkansas. 

They offered me a plea bargain of 6-9 months in home detention and my record expunged if I agreed to possession of two images. I did so. And the DA used sign language to raise the sentence with the Judge.

The purpose of the prosecutor is to prosecute and to win a conviction.  He has no motivation or concern about the real truth or the causes of any given crime event. 

His job and the ability to rise within his career is based solely in his ability to convict others. 

A “Discovery” is a document listing the findings by the detective on the case.

Like the prosecutor, the detective has no real stake in finding out the relative truth in a crime.  Their purpose is only to support the conviction by the prosecutor.  The detective generates a document called a “Discovery” that lists the findings.  My “Discovery” was about 60 pages long.  In it was a boiler plate background on how most Child Predators were loners and who had antisocial tendencies, but could adequately fit into society. 

My “discovery” consisted of two cover pages directly concerning my findings, and 58 pages of “boiler plate” data regarding sexual predatory behaviors.  There was nothing about my mental history, or background at all in it. 

Only the first two pages in the 60 page document listed anything directly relating to me.  In that there were [1] the references to the two pictures that a doctor, working for the Arkansas Police, claimed was a person that could be under the age of 18.  It also discussed [2] that I had thousands of porn pictures on the CDROMS in the storage box.  But they were not illegal.  They also (curiously) made note that I had [3] pictures of German military tanks and weapons from World War II, and that this was indicative of the possibility that I had neo-Nazi leaning tendencies. 

Compared my known histories

They compared my known histories and reviewed my training.  To my surprise I also had memory blackout of various paramilitary course, and education. 

This was certainly curious.  As even while I was entangled I had completely forgot about all subsequent training.

One was involved in the “Louisiana Swamp Rats”.  This was, at one time, a hard-core para-military training center. 

Others discussed my advanced education, and still others related some of the various minor tasks that I was called upon to do, that weren’t so minor after all.  My favorite quote was when one of the observers said that I was part mountain man, part bear, and part Einstein.  That comment, well, it made my day.

They made many such statements; but I am afraid that I cannot remember all of them.

Because of the inadequacies in the Discovery, the team went inside my memories to extract what I had actually done.  This was an interesting experience, where they probed the innermost workings of my mind. 

They compared my physical reactions to ELF generated pulses.  Trying to trigger any sort of aggressive or antisocial tendencies.  Of course, since I was previously vetted, none could be found, so my case was closed. 

And I was assigned a low threat level.

I was assigned a level #1 threat level.  

Running the software routines


“I'm lonely, he thought.

Distantly he heard soft, high voices.

He turned his eyes in upon a vision. There was a group of hills from which flowed a clear river, and in the shallows of that river, sending up spray, their faces shimmering, were the beautiful women. They played like children on the shore. And it came to Forester to know about them and their life. They were nomads, roaming the face of this world as was their desire. There were no highways or cities, there were only hills and plains and winds to carry them like white feathers where they wished. As Forester shaped the questions, some invisible answerer whispered the answers. There were no men. These women, alone, produced their race. The men had vanished fifty thousand years ago. And where were these women now? A mile down from the green forest, a mile over on the wine stream by the six white stones, and a third mile to the large river. There, in the shallows, were the women who would make fine wives, and raise beautiful children.

Forester opened his eyes. 

The other men were sitting up.

"I had a dream."

They had all dreamed.

"A mile flown from the green forest a mile over on the wine stream . . . ."
". . . by the six white stones," said Koestler.
". . . and a third mile to the large river," said Driscoll, sitting there.

Nobody spoke again for at moment. 

They looked at the silver rocket standing there in the starlight"

Do we walk or fly, Captain?"

Things were very weird for me. 

I cannot express how unusual this situation was for me.  Not only from the environment surrounding me, but also from what my mind and emotions were experiencing.  It is hard to describe, but when a person’s mind, memories and thoughts are being accessed what one experiences (at that time) becomes “outside the normal”. 

What happens, is that the mind tries to piece together, in a logical fashion, what is occurring.  It does this even if what is occurring is illogical.  The end result becomes a confused jumble of events, sequences of events, emotions, sensory impressions and memories that are all entangled in a huge mess of confusion.

I had amazingly vivid dreams, and a convoluted mixture of past memories, shared drone experiences, current events, and embedded program “movies” or “subroutines” all flooded my mind. 

Trying to piece them all together was rather impossible and difficult. 

I will not relate here what I experienced.  For, as far as I am concerned, they are nothing less than visual hallucinations.  And, thus have no useful purpose in this extracted dialog.  Because of this, I will refrain from relating the fantastical impressions that I experienced during this time. 

They serve no benefit to the reader.

That being stated, there are other aspects of this period that are truly significant.  These are themselves worthy of discussion.  What is interesting are a number of events that are special “retirement” programs. 

These routines ran in my mind with [1] audio, [2] visual, and [3] tactile impressions. 

The senses of taste and smell were absent from these experiences.

That means that I was living or reliving these experiences as if they were actually happening.  When, I knew that they were not real at all, but rather programs that ran inside my brain.

So…

Once the “on” switch was set to “off”, a set number of closure routines rain inside my brain. These routines were amazing as it was as if I were experiencing them physically. Not that I was reliving a memory, or watching a television show.

I have speculated that these routines ran from a source outside of my human consciousness and that their operation was directed through the controllers at the ELF facility that was decommissioning me.  But this is speculation only.  I say this because I do not believe that the probes had any kind of software that met these stated capabilities.

There were a number of such programs. 

I can recall about 12 in total.  I will relate three of the most significant.  One must keep in mind that these are the retirement events based upon what responses that I gave on the questionnaire before I entered the dimensional field.  A person with different answers would of experienced different software programs.

Or, alternatively, the same program, but with different variables and emotional content.  This is all speculation on my part.

The programs that I shall relate here are;

  • The gathering of the retirement programs
  • The promise of a new life awaits me upon retirement.
  • The retirement of the “spirit of a Marine” (within the hilt of a sword).

Needless to explain, all these experiences are extremely personal and private. 

As such, it will be very difficult for me to relate the emotional impact running these confusing program events were to me.  But I will do my best to relate them. 

The names and titles that I provide here are my own. 

Please understand that these programs are designed to evoke mental and emotional responses used to satiate the need for curiosity and to add full and complete closure to my experiences in a friendly and caring way. 

Even though those Fuckers turned me into a sex offender and gave me five years at hard labor.

The closure subroutines are not meant to hurt, harm, or belittle me in any way.  But rather, are intended to close out my role comfortably and with compassion, all the time meeting the overall goal of maintaining program secrecy.

The reader must keep in mind that someone had to write these programs that did these things.  Someone had to conceive of them, and someone had to design and implement them.  They did not just “pop up” out of nowhere.

Shutting off system access, memories, and communication links.
Shutting off system access, memories, and communication links.

The gathering of the retirement programs

It was going to be a long night. 

I knew it, you know.  It was one of those feelings that one gets when they watch a darkness brewing out off in the ocean.  It was eerie.  It was a kind of gathering of clouds, metaphorically speaking.  Soft but ultimately a foreboding of impending doom.

During this entire two week period the field was never turned off.  It remained on, and I was under the constant onslaught of its effects.  It affected me in various ways.  But I could certainly tell when an individual program ran.  This is because the implanted probes would switch on various parts of my brain and interact with them in clearly unnatural, and often uncomfortable, ways. 

What is explained at this point might be a bit confusing.  I describe what my visual cortex “saw” and how I felt during this period.  To everyone else in the prison facility, I was lying alone on my rack in the tiny cell.  (Mumbling, perhaps yelling… certainly trembling and sweating.)  One needs to keep this in mind.  As all the events that are now described happened only in my mind and were oblivious to everyone except those handlers who were monitoring my mind and watching the programs interact with my brain.

Thus, I knew that I was entering a program when suddenly my visual cortex switched on and my audio and tactile responses became noticeably different. 

In this case, what would best be described as a lucid dream, with full auditory, tactile and visual stimulation flooded my mind. 

It was, from my point of view, nearly indistinguishable from reality. 

Nearly, does not mean totally, and to this end I want to convey to the reader that from my point of view it was like participating in a 6D movie.  It was real enough, but easily distinguishable from reality.

The best way to describe this was as if I was inside a “holodeck” much like was in the Star-Trek series.  It was just a large dark chamber that seemed real enough to me.

A holodeck, in the fictional Star Trek universe, is a simulated reality facility located on star-ships and star-bases. Most holodeck programs shown in the episodes run in first person "subjective mode", in which the user actively interacts with the program and its characters. The user may also employ third-person "objective mode", in which he or she is "apart" from the actual running of the program and does not interact with it.
A holodeck, in the fictional Star Trek universe, is a simulated reality facility located on star-ships and star-bases.

.

I found myself standing inside a large dark chamber. 

I couldn’t see the extent of the chamber as everything was dark and black.  Where I was standing was illuminated in some way and showed the presence of twelve individuals or life-size Figures. 

These figures stood frozen without moving.  Like large chess pieces. 

Everything was in breath-taking full color and absolutely sparking clear and crisp.  The twelve figures stood in two rows of six individuals.  One row of six stood in mute silence facing the other row of six.  I stood in the middle between both of the rows.  I looked forward at them.  The row to my right held six individuals and the row to my left held six individuals.

I was able to walk around them and look at them. 

One was a Marine.  He had my face, but stood taller than I did, and was stronger than I was.  He had the wrinkles and scars of many a battle and of nights of restless vigilance.  He reminded me a little bit of the gunnery sergeant (played by Clint Eastwood) from the movie “Heartbreak Ridge”.

Gunny Highway.

.

Across from him was a large Mantid.  It was easily seven feet tall, and reminded me of the alien from the movie series Aliens.  It was not (at all) representative of the Mantids that I worked with as a drone commander.  This one was much larger and tended to be a bit more terrifying.  It also had a larger caprice than what I was familiar with. It had a triangular head with two large eyes.

The Alien film franchise (also known as Aliens) is a science fiction horror film series consisting of four installments, focusing on Lieutenant Ellen Ripley (played by Sigourney Weaver) and her battles with an extraterrestrial life form, commonly referred to as the "Alien". Produced by 20th Century Fox, the series started with the 1979 film Alien, which led to three movie sequels, as well as numerous books, comics and video game spin-offs.

There was a naval officer in dress whites.  He had my face, was clean shaven, and held the rank of Commander.  He had an impressive array of ribbons, and had signs of greying at the temples.  He seemed to be calm and quiet with an easy smile and friendly demeanor. 

This version of “me” was different than the Marine version of “me”.  They indicated different lives that they lead.  And how they both turned out after living those lives.

The Dress White uniform consists of a stand-collar white tunic, white trousers, and white dress shoes. Rank for officers is displayed on shoulder boards for males and on the sleeve cuffs for females, while CPO rank insignia is worn on the collar for both sexes. Service dress white includes ribbons, whereas full dress white includes ribbons and medals. This uniform is informally called "Chokers", due to the stand-collar.

"Greying at the temples" means; had white hair around the front near the ears.
Well, he looked something like this. Only with a different rank.

.

There was a scientist / intellectual version of “me”.  He wore a tattered button-down sweater with elbow patches, and pockets.  He had bifocal wire-rim glasses on, and was balding.  He had a white beard and stood there petting a large beautiful Maine-coon cat.  Strangely, he wore a pair of slippers and was smoking a pipe.

I wonder if these characters were all composed of images that I have collected in my subconscious (such as Albert Einstein) and then juxtaposed into my image stream.

Frayed. Comfortably worn and a little frayed; as what one would expect from a favorite item of clothing that has been worn extensively.
Scientist.

.

There was an archaeologist version of myself.  He was quite stereotypical; attired in a pith helmet, dirty khaki shirt and riding britches with a pair or brown long (horse riding) boots.  He was thin, and looked a little gaunt.  He was well tanned, and had a week’s stubble of hair on his chin.

An archaeologist wearing a pith helmet on a “dig”.

.

There was a Type-II gray drone.  It was slightly transparent.  And it looked like it was composed of <redacted>. Which were somewhat similar to the lines of futuristic code shown on the movie “The Matrix”.  It was taller than I remembered it to be.  The color was also a <redacted> complexion that I was accustomed to.  (Odd.  I do not know why this was so.)

This was the strangest figurine in the line-up.

There was a beautiful Asian girl.  She was deeply tanned, and looked like Polynesian mix of part Polynesian and part Japanese.  She was, perhaps, Indonesian or Malaysian in racial makeup.  She was short with an hourglass shape, shapely legs and dark liquid eyes set deep with a cute nose and deep black hair.  She wore a simple sarong with bare feet, and holding a basket of fruit.  The fruit was of a tropical bent, being mostly durian, dragon fruit, pineapples, bananas, guava, and coconuts.  She had a red passion flower in her hair. 

(So stereotypical, but also so lovely….)

Yeah. She sort of looked a little like this lass.

.

I won’t go into the full range of figures that stood there before me.  Each one represented a different series of memories and had a special role in my life. 

While most of what we were involved in was related to closure and suppression of the memories, other programs served different functions and purposes.  (They were but the representations of various programs.  As such they maintained a purposeful stereotypical significance that somehow “plugged into” or connected to my sub-consciousness.)

You all will see the various roles that they held in part 2. Each special subroutine had a role and it was used to “condition” me properly so that I can exist MAJestic in a healthy way, and not be scared for life due to an abrupt and improperly conducted ELF shut-down sequence.

In truth, I endured the entire software routines.  But, for purposes of simplification, as well as to avoid reliving the entire strenuous event, I have decided to limit recalling this event.  Instead I am just going to relate only two of the twelve programs. 

The first [1] is the program concerning the Asian female.  I call this subroutine promise, the “promise of a new life after retirement”. 

The second [2] is the complete closure ceremony.  I call this the “retirement of the spirit of a Marine”.

I will ignore the other ten programs, as they would probably devote an entire book in their own right to relate. Maybe I’ll write another post on them later on. But for now, it’s way too much.

This is the end of part one

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