The years 1986 and 1987 for Kerry Burgess have been on my mind a lot lately. It began with a memory that turned out to be a contradiction and I think that was the point. They put these tiny little ideas into my head somehow which in turn causes me to think more and more about it. I compare and contrast and analyze every little detail until I arrive at a conclusion or theories that I explore and investigate.
The particular memory in question is about the "accidental" strike on the USS Stark in the Arabian Gulf on May 17, 1987. For a long time, I have had this memory of that event that, I see now in hindsight, seems unusal, almost as though something in my mind keeps telling me to look closer at this memory. I remember quite clearly standing in my barracks room with my roommate, TM3 Preston Lee, and watching the news report about the strike on the Stark. The problem is that I was in school on the Orlando Navy base in 1986, not 1987. I was in school in Virginia in 1987. I should remember standing in my barracks room in Virginia and watching it there, but we didn't even have a tv in that room. I thought about that for a while and recently I started having some new thoughts.
The basic theory is that Thomas Ray was shot down on February 14, 1986, somewhere over Africa, probably Libya or Chad. Kerry Burgess had a buddy in high school, who went on to be a lawyer in the Air Force, named Chad Trammel. I think the aircraft Thomas Ray was flying in on 2/14/86 was an A-6(TRAM). As I have explored this train of thought, a lot of details have lined up in the form of symbolism. I believe that Thomas Ray was initially a POW but then escaped when the compound was bombed by U.S. aircraft. I believe he was sometimes missing in action, sometimes being assisted while on the ground and trying to evade capture. The period ended around the time the Stark was struck by saddam.
The time period is consistent with Kerry Burgess's time in school during 1986 and 1987. I started Basic Electricity and Electronics School in Orlando in February 1986. I traveled down there in my 1978 Ford Explorer pickup. The Stark was hit in May 1987, I finished my third school in the Fire Controlman computer complex training program sometime in June 1987.
I am thinking that I escaped from captivity and then made it across Africa to Djibouti where I met a U.S. Navy warship. I don't know if that was the Stark or if the Stark was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I believe, if any of these thoughts I am having are true, that Reagan was happy that I had been found alive and saddam ordered the strike on the Stark. He chose Stark because they found me or because they were just in the wrong place at the wrong as saddam tried to dampen the mood.
Also, it seems important that my step-brother was killed in a car wreck, in his small red Dodge pickup, when I was home on leave in 1986. It was 11/25/86. He had just dropped me off at Theda and Denzil's house and was driving back that night. A few days later, I would feel guilty because I had not driven that night as I usually did. If I had driven that night, he would not have even been on the road where he had the wreck and died. Early in the evening before he died, we were traveling down the highway and he almost wrecked in order to make a quick turn into a cemetary. I asked him what he was doing. He slowly turned the truck around so that the headlights slowly illuminated the gravestones and told me: "It's a cemetary. Get used to it." I wondered for a long time what the hell all that was supposed to mean. In the past few days, I think I figured it out.
I believe this memory symbolizes several details about Thomas Ray in 1986. First, he was the bombadier/navigator in a A-6(TRAM) when he and the pilot were shot down. I found an article on the internet that discusses an A-6 pilot pilot being killed and the b/n being imprisoned for a year, but I haven't found anything else about. After I thought again about that night Micheal died and he drove into the cemetary, I remembered something else from 1986. After Orlando, I traveled to Chicago for my second school. I had a girlfriend who lived in a suburb named Arlington Heights. I decided that this detail represents Arlington National Cemetary. I think it means that my step-brother, Micheal, actually represents the pilot of that A-6. He died in the crash while I was able to eject. After thinking of that, I remembered a scene from "Flight Of The Intruder" that seems relevant. That part where Grafton and Cole are talking about ejecting. My guilt was that either that if I had been the pilot that night, we would have evaded the missiles. Or I felt guilty because the enemy had concentrated their forces on our aircraft because they knew I was in it and I was a special target because they knew I was Reagan's grandson.
My theory centers around several speeches by Reagan that I found. These seem relevant to me for reasons I can't fully explain. But I think one of the first clues that got me to believing is this part about being shot down on 2/14/86. My younger sister, Melissa, was born 2/14/68. I have noticed a consistency in the way numbers are transposed sometimes and I'll write more about that later. But I believe this is a strong clue, suggesting this is all true.
Public Papers of Ronald Reagan February 1986
February 14, 1986
Message to the House of Representatives Returning Without Approval a United States Coast Guard Bill
Executive Order 12548 -- Grazing Fees
Message on the Observance of Brotherhood/Sisterhood Week, February 16 - 22, 1986
And then in 1987, there are these clues. In one speech, he is making a speech, and a joke, about someone's funeral. According to the time stamps on the speechs, he made a statement about the Stark a few minutes. This is all theory and speculation on my part, but I am starting to believe it. I just wish I could remember so I will know what all this means.
Public Papers of Ronald Reagan May 1987
May 18, 1987
Remarks at the Presentation Ceremony for the ``E'' and ``E Star'' Awards
Statement on the Attack Against the U.S.S. Stark
When I started looking at it from this new perception, I started thinking of that Gene Hackman/Danny Glover movie that came out in 1988: BAT*21. That movie is supposedly based on actual events in Vietnam, but I am wondering if my personal and similar experiences in 1986 and 1987 prompted the production of that movie in 1988. The wiki article on that movie describes that one of the people on the rescue team was named Nguyen. I had a roommate in 1986 named Nguyen. Everyone pronounced him named as "new gen" but he told me it was pronounced as "win" or maybe "when."
