The Red White & Blue

by Harry Kellogg III

  Junod thought, Why did he do this? Why was he willing to work saving other families, while abandoning his own? Why did he try and save people from others who wanted to kill them? Over the years, he had considered these questions. He never did come to any other conclusion than to confirm that he was doing God’s work. So far, God’s work, had been enough to justify the choices he had made.

  If he hadn’t been caught up in this new war, he just might have gone back home, made love to his wife, held his son, and started to look for a new way to fulfill his destiny. Destiny, legacy, was that why he did it? Seems rather self-ingratiating if you really thought about it.

  Did a truly altruistic person exist or did everyone look to some higher purpose like serving their God, legacy or was it their destiny? Junod didn’t like questioning his beliefs. To date, his beliefs had saved thousands of souls and brought relief to the suffering of millions.

  He was snapped out of his reverie by another crisis du jour. In the hospital he was visiting, the wounded Turks were attempting to kill the Soviet patients. In addition, the Armenians down the hall were making threats against the Turks. All this acrimony was expected. What was not expected, was the security detachment assigned by the local commander, suddenly deserting their posts. Their departure left the doctors and nurses at the mercy of the warring patients. As it stood now, all that was preventing a massacre inside the International Red Cross hospital, was the female Red Cross staff. The women were struggling to separate the fighting patients. Doctor Marcel Junod ran quickly down the hall. Once again, he trusted in God, fulfilled his destiny and further cemented his legacy.

  Figure 9- Doctor Marcel Junod at work for the Red Cross

  Figure 10- One of the Clocks of Hiroshima

  Chapter Four:

  Unsung Heroes

  Figure 11- Spencer Crenshaw 1946

  Crenshaw Dying Thought

  Crenshaw didn’t feel very well. He spent much of last night coughing and spitting up blood. He dragged himself into work at the Pentagon. He still kind of missed the old building they worked in before this edifice to war had been built. Largest only to the Kremlin, he was once told and couldn’t care less. It was harder and harder for him to get to his office in the basement. Just too damn far for his cancer wracked body to carry his brain.

  He could have easily worked on his secret project at home, and as far as he was concerned, this was his most important work. Pushing pins and duplicating other’s work would not win the war. He was certain his secret project would do just that, once he recalled what was just out of reach in his memory. But his job was to push pins into a map that nobody looked at, down in the basement of the Pentagon. It was not to win the war. He had run out of sick days and he had to get paid.

  Yes, he had cancer. No doubt about it. He had finally gone to the Pentagon infirmary and the doctor confirmed as much. He actually had known for months, but was in the frame of mind that if you don’t know you are going to die you aren’t going to die from it but finally the symptoms were too much. Coughing up blood all the time.

  He knew he was going to die and die soon, but he had one more task to perform before he left this world. He was so close to solving the puzzle of what the Communists were using for their missile systems. If his supervisor would only let him alone to figure out the problem, he was sure he could have solved it in a matter of days. When he had needed resources they would not provide them and now God would not provide him the time to do his work. Work that he was sure would save many a God-fearing person's life and take many a godforsaken communist’s life.

  But then again maybe it wasn’t God, maybe it was the Chesterfield cigarettes he had smoked for 35 years. He had heard they caused lung cancer and that there were studies in progress to prove this fact. But, it was too late for him. He almost fell going down the stairs to his office. The guard had to help him the last 50 feet. It had taken him a full 10 min to catch his breath and to even consider thinking about the problem again. The handkerchief was covered in blood and he didn't have a spare. He searched around for some kind of piece of paper that he could spit into as he started to cough again.

  He was so close to the answer, it made his mind tingle knowing that he just needed one more piece of information, one more hint, and one more logical connection. With just one more clue he could stop the slaughter of American bombers over the USSR. He knew the clue would involve some professor, teacher or scientist with whom he had contact but the clue would not come to him. He tried to relive his life over and over to trick his mind into discovering that one elusive clue that could break the dam of irrelevant memories preventing him from succeeding in solving this one last puzzle.

  It was hard to think when you're coughing so hard, spitting blood, and feeling totally, utterly helpless, and so weak you can’t even get out of bed. So weak that you would rather wet yourself then get up and go to the bathroom. He had not eaten in days so taking a shit was no problem. There was nothing left to shit. Nothing in means nothing out. Nothing in means no energy. No energy means death and he was close, both to death and victory.

  His nephew, Jim, had driven him to the Pentagon and was going to pick him up in an hour. Crenshaw was not going to make it for another hour. He felt and knew this instinctively. His time was up just when he needed to write one more message, and to convey one more thought before he had no more thoughts. He started to panic looking for something on which to write. He remembered for the love of God, he remembered! But, it was almost too late. He dragged himself to the chalkboard and scratched out a word. A word that was followed by a chalk mark down the rest of the board and partially on the wall. The line ended with the piece of chalk in his hand broken into small bits. The word was almost unintelligible, it appeared to read

  The guard looked in and found him on the floor in a pile of his own bloody vomit. He was dead. Dead at the age of 47. Dead after smoking precisely 383,478 Chesterfield cigarettes. Dead, just after he had solved his last puzzle. Dead, before he could tell anyone the solution.

  Jim wondered what all the commotion was about when he pulled into the visitors parking to pick up his uncle. He genuinely loved his uncle. He didn’t beat him like his dad. It was amazing how identical twins could be so different. Maybe it was the war for his dad. It made no matter. He was still beat with regularity until he put a stop to it when he became big enough to fight back. He was probably the only person who did love his uncle. To everyone else he was a recluse and very rude. It was a nightmare to go out to lunch with him. He was so harsh to the poor waitresses. Jim very often slipped them an extra dollar above and beyond what his uncle would tip just to make up for the extra were and tear on their egos once his uncle got through with them.

  His uncle was dying and everyone knew that. His uncle had asked him for one more favor and that was to take him once more back to his office. He was on the verge of solving a very important problem and felt that being down in his office one more time could lead to the memory that was eluding him. He confided in Jim that he was close to remembering many times. If someone interrupted him or his mind wandered, the memory scrap would quickly fade away. He was so frustrated it made his nephew wish he could help in some way.

  His uncle was so sure he could prevent the US from losing the war. Just this one memory locked in his dying body was all that was preventing him from liberating the world from the godless communists. Yes, his uncle had found religion and found it big time. With nightly bible readings and prayers for this and that so much so that it was quite frankly annoying.

  Jim Crenshaw’s Epiphany

  Shit, he was going fast! This old German motorcycle could really get going once it hit its stride. God how he loved riding this machine with the wind ripping at your clothes, and even the bugs bouncing off his goggles. The tires weren’t so good and he couldn’t get replacements for the damn things being metric and all. He’d have to figure out a way to put new wheels that would take American sized tires on this beauty if he wanted to get another few years
out of it. And, man did he want to.

  His baby was a BMW R71 and it was so good that the Army had Harley-Davison copy it near the middle of the war. This monster hummed. Whoa! A little slip of the back tire on some gravel brought him back to earth, and almost back to being under the earth. Then, a fucking pigeon almost hit him in the face and that really made him think about his mortality.

  Alright, enough dare-devil stuff for one day. He throttled back to a relatively sedate 60 mph. Time to go home. He didn’t like going home anymore because his father reminded him that his favorite uncle was dead. What a crappy way to go, too. Coughing up your own lungs, and lying in your own pool of piss and who knows what else they found coming from his body. It gave him shivers just thinking about it. He hated his father who was a fucking bully. But, Jim had always loved his uncle and spent as much time as he could with the hard drinking chain smoking son of a gun. He was more than upset that his haven was gone. After next week, he would not have his uncle or his uncle’s home to retreat to when his home life got to rough. He supposed that at age 16, he could run off like so many others have.

  Jim was big for his age, like his father and uncle. So, he could probably lie about his age and join the army. With the new war and all, the military were looking for young meat. He was on his way to his uncle’s house once more to check on a few things. Also, he wanted to solve the riddle his uncle had left him. He was sure the last message was meant for him.

  What the hell did that mean? What was his uncle trying to tell him?

  He pulled into the drive of his uncle’s old two bedroom home in a comfortable neighborhood. Man, he was going to miss this place. He found the key under the pot and was about to enter when the neighbor, Mrs. Bode, shouted for him to come over. He did, being the good boy he was and was glad he did. She consoled him and put a big piece of pie in front of him. Then, she proceeded to lecture him on the evils of drinking and smoking.

  “Don’t you worry, Mrs. Bode, I don’t like either of those things.”

  “Good Boy!”

  “Now, I really have to go Mrs. Bode.”

  “Okay my boy…okay. I suppose I won’t be seeing much of you?’

  “I suppose not Mrs. Bode.”

  “Take care my boy, Take care.”

  “I will and thanks for the pie.”

  He quickly left and finally got inside the house. He stood in the small dingy hallway thinking of the wordSkinne… Well it started with a capital so it was probably a name of something. He decided to systematically look through his uncle’s pile of papers starting with the oldest looking first. He figured with this method he might come across what it was sooner. He reasoned that if his uncle had been trying to remember something, it would have to be something from a long time ago. Otherwise, the clue would be on top of the piles and he would have seen it by now. He figured his strategy was a wild ass guess, but at least it gave him a place to start. He knew his uncle was working on what the enemy was using to guide their missiles so that really narrowed the search down.

  He wasn’t sure that his uncle should have some of these papers in his house. Several were marked Top Secret. That can’t be good, he thought. He continued on in the innocence of youth anyway. Stack after stack. Boring papers on radar and radio waves, and counter effects, and who knows what, but nothing with Skinne in it. A folder with contracts from General Mills, a letter from some guy named Tolman, and another guy named Spencer Bush. The folder contents were all in order and kind of packed together. He put them aside, when a promising stack caught his attention. Two hours later he was starved and raided his uncle’s icebox. Yes, he still had an icebox and probably the last iceman in the city coming every other day to fill it.

  On his way back to the table where he was staring bleary eyed at the latest stack of endless papers, he knocked over the pile he has set aside before. Cursing he started to put them back in order and the figure of $25,000 on a contract jumped out. That was a lot of money in this day and age. Who could be doing something for General Mills that his uncle might be interested in for 25 grand. He glanced at the contents, and saw the title “Organic Homing Device.” What the hell was that? The contract ran for almost a whole year for whatever it was for.

  The next stapled group read Description for Directing a Bomb at a Target. Well, that might be something. The next down in the pile was “The Present Status of the “Bird’s Eye Bomb.” Now, that made him laugh out loud, and then, he saw it…THE GUY’S NAME… THE GUY’S FUCKING NAME![5]

  Skinner…Butt Fucking Skinner. This was it! This was IT! That was the SKINNE he was trying to tell us. This is what his uncle was trying to remember. This was FUCKING IT. Some guy named Skinner had been working on directing a bomb and here it was. But now what? What the fuck do you do with something like this that has “Top Secret” stamped on everything? He guessed a good thing might be to read it first.

  He folded back the first page and almost started to laugh out loud. The idea was so ridiculous that he almost put the document down and continued his search. However, the more he read, the more his confidence increased. This was really it.

  Good job, Unc! You nailed it. But now what? How do you deliver this information so someone reads it and understands the significance of what he held in his hands? How do you walk up to someone and say, I think this might win the war, hand them some Top Secret papers, and walk away without getting shot or laughed out of the room?

  Why… you hand it back to the guy who wrote it in the first place. Surely, the author would see the significance of what his uncle discovered. Surely, Skinner would be the person Jim needed to track down. Now, how does a 16 year old find a guy named Skinner in a country as big as the United States with a motorcycle that has bad tires and $10 in your pocket?

  Shit, his uncle’s emergency money, of course. He said he could use it at any time and now was definitely that time. He ran down the stairs to the basement and stood trying to remember which can his uncle showed him and where he put it. After a half an hour he found the can, right where his uncle put it. The two hundred dollars in it should be enough to take him wherever he needed to go to find Dr. B. F. Skinner.

  B.F. Skinner, Ph.D.

  Dr. Skinner had just finished his lecture as the Chair of the Psychology Department at Indiana University. He liked to lecture from time to time, especially to the best students in his care. It was almost a year since he came to Bloomington, and it was starting to wear on him. He missed Harvard terribly and its proximity to the Appalachians. He needed some kind of change in elevation, large trees that turned gorgeous colors in the fall, and that fresh green color in the spring. Bloomington was not blooming at this time of year and the colors on the trees had faded fast. It was time for another grey winter with not much to look forward to.

  So, he has started to write a book about the future unofficially named Walden Two. The book was a kind of play on Thoreau's Walden Pond. While Thoreau expounded on the virtues of self-reliance, he theorized that the real virtue of self-reliance lay in a community where the free will of the individual is weak when compared to how environmental conditions shape behavior. He was very leery about writing in today’s academic climate about such things no matter how much he believed in them. His observations and remarks could easily be taken for communist leanings that he did not possess to any degree, certainly not Stalin’s version that he had just begun to study.

  Also, he was becoming aware of just how dangerous this new war was. He had heard of tales of rockets and jet fighters, and of course, the atomic bomb. He hoped no one would ever place an atomic bomb in a V2-like rocket. Such a device would lead to total annihilation of the human race if his theories were correct, and if that did occur, he fervently wished to be wrong.

  Skinner’s fertile mind had taken him far a field in his career. He was still working with his favorite test subjects and had used some of the principles of his work with them for his work with children. It all started in 1944 with his daughter. He noticed that his wife was spending to
o much time caring for the baby’s physical needs. He wanted to see if he could make her life easier as well as make a safer crib for his daughter.

  So, he invented what resembled a hospital incubator. He was working at the University of Minnesota at the time. He put in a heater and other additions to a crib. These experimental features allowed his daughter to sleep in total comfort without the need of layers and layers of blankets. The trouble started when a writer for the Ladies Home Journal did an article on the crib and titled it “Baby in a Box.” During the interview, the photographer noticed that the baby had woken up and was looking at the assembled group. He took her picture. She had just woken up and was using the glass to get her balance. The photo made it look like she was trying to get out.[6]

  Well, the crap hit the fan even though he and his wife explained that the special crib was just for sleeping. The fact that he had invented a “lever box” for rats and pigeons to test their behavior just made the situation worse.

  The lever box was used to see if an animals’ behavior would be altered by giving them rewards for doing the behavior you wanted to them to do. He didn’t go into the punishment side of behaviorism, as some of his colleagues had. He was all about rewards. When a test subject did the optimal behavior or even took a step in the right direction, it was rewarded with a piece of grain, some seeds, etc. He had used his theories to teach pigeons to play ping pong and…his mind wandered briefly to another use. But, he quickly turned away from thinking about what he considered a short-sighted failure of imagination by the people in charge. He never thought about that project for long, even though it lasted for a good year.