JOURNAL ARCHIVE: August 28, 2006
I wonder if that is why Microsoft moved Danny Florentin from Hawaii to work with me. I transitioned most of my TAM customers to him when I was transitioning to ADC. He's a nice guy with a nice family. He had lived in Hawaii, but as someone pointed out when I was talking to him, he was originally from the Philippines. Little details like that are probably important but I don't know why. Thomas Ray would probably know precisely why it was important.
JOURNAL ARCHIVE: August 29, 2006
My doctor asked me why I wanted to return as Thomas Ray. As I was riding back on the bus, I decided that the real reason is that I want to prosecute the people that revealed my covert activities. I also miss my family. It is quite the lonely feeling to realize you miss people that you can't even remember.
I wonder if my family knew I went to Mars. That would have been lonely if they didn't even know where I was. It would be lonely because I was millions of miles away and even lonelier because they didn't know I was out there.
JOURNAL ARCHIVE: August 31, 2006
I've been thinking for a while that the dreams I have are literal. They are the foreign dreams I used to write, the dreams produced by the manipulators of my thoughts. Don't know what to say about that last one. Jumbled, disturbing, painful. Somebody put in a lot of effort to make me forget those memories, if it is real. There was a scene there straight out the opening of "Saving Private Ryan" except that it seemed to be in the Middle East. And it was something like a pyramid I was running into, and I was by myself and every gun, there were countless guns, was turning towards me. It was sort of like a pyramid I was rushing onto, except that it was elogated, like a castle wall. In another scene, a two-star general or admiral was captured by the enemy. Back in the stretched-pyramid, I was fighting off an attack. Grenades were flying in on me, but I don't recall them going off. Then, I and some of my fellow soldiers seemed to be cleaning the place. A lot of other stuff that is fading from my mind. I feel sad, very sad.
I was thinking again last night about that American Legion award from my symbolic memory. I received it towards the end of my Junior year at Ashdown. I allegedly went to Iraq in my Junior year at the Academy in 1981. I wonder if it represents the Medal of Honor.
I was thinking again about the good-looking woman standing behind me at the Seattle Marathon. She kicked me in the foot and we started talking. Turned out she was going to school in Provo, Utah, and I told her about going there for Ironman Utah 2002. For some reason, I wanted to associate her with Dell Computers. Her mother was from Portland. She called her mother over there at one time, but I think it was just before I went into one of the porta-potties, which we were standing in line for. I saw her again towards as I was running towards Seward Park. She was several miles ahead of me.
The movie "Mission To Mars," according to sources, was released on 3/10/2000. I don't think it is a coincidence that the movie about a trip to Mars was released exactly one week after my birthday of 3/3. I was also thinking that Apollo 11 was the one that landed on the moon because my 11th birthday was approching. If I was on Apollo 11, I would have been 10 years, 4 months, 17 days old at the time.
It wasn't so much a pyramid, although I keep wanting to call it that, than a very high wall. But it seemed sloped liked the side of the pyramid. It was actually more like a wall, where the enemy resided all along the top, shooting downwards. I managed to get to the top and then fought off a counter-assault of enemy troops. Not sure if I batted away the hand grenades they were throwing or they just didn't go off or they did go off but I wasn't seriously wounded or some combination of all three.
JOURNAL ARCHIVE: 9/1/2006 2:23 PM
This is the day I remember that Michael died. This must mean something. I keep saying that but I know what it means. I just can’t remember. It means I was missing. I am not certain of that though. Am I not certain because I was not missing or am I not certain because I simply do not remember?
http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1986/112286a.htm
Radio Address to the Nation on the Observance of Thanksgiving Day
November 22, 1986
My fellow Americans:
This coming Thursday we'll celebrate a holiday that belongs uniquely to our nation -- Thanksgiving Day. Millions of us will travel from all parts of the country to gather in family homes, observing the holiday according to longstanding tradition: turkey with all the fixings, pumpkin pie, laughter, the warmth of family, love, and, yes, a moment of prayer to give thanks. Yet, at the same time, many among us will be less fortunate.
9/1/2006 2:26 PM
Reading through that I remember all those people that day bringing food to our house on Hicks Road as that was customary when someone died.
9/1/2006 2:32 PM
No, wait, that’s not right. It was November 25th.
I wish I knew what it all means.
JOURNAL ARCHIVE: 9/1/2006 8:23 PM
I have also been wondering if I knew this guy:
http://www.higgins.navy.mil/
OUR SHIP'S NAMESAKE
COLONEL WILLIAM R. HIGGINS, USMC
This quote from the Higgins website seems especially relevant considering my captivity:"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing he cares more about than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself." - John Stuart Mill
9/1/2006 8:33 PM
This seems familiar, especially now:
http://www.cook.navy.mil/Name.htm
…
He impressed upon the Viet Cong that he was senior among the POWs and therefore spokesman for the group, fully aware that his actions would lead to harsh treatment for himself. Col. Cook was subjected to physical abuse and isolation but he resisted his captor's efforts to break his will and was used as a "bad" example by his Communist guards.
USS Donald Cook DDG-75
JOURNAL ARCHIVE: 11/29/06 6:55 PM
It is interesting that the former POW's were taken to Stewart Air Force base, especially since I have been thinking that I was the pilot of that aircraft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_hostage_crisis
...
On January 20, 1981, twenty minutes after President Reagan's inaugural address, the hostages were formally released into U.S. custody, having spent 444 days in captivity. The hostages were flown to Algeria as a symbolic gesture for the help of that government in resolving the crisis, where former President Carter, acting as an emissary for the Reagan administration, received them. The flight continued to Rhein-Main Air Base in West Germany. After medical check-ups and debriefings they took a second flight to Stewart Air Force Base in Newburgh, New York and a bus ride to the United States Military Academy, receiving a hero's welcome all along the route.
11/29/06 7:01 PM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stewart_International_Airport
Stewart International Airport (IATA: SWF, ICAO: KSWF) is located near Newburgh, New York, in the southern Hudson Valley, 55 miles (88.5 km) north of New York City. Originally developed in the 1930s as a military base to allow cadets at the nearby United States Military Academy at West Point to learn aviation, it has over the years grown into the major passenger airport for the mid-Hudson region and continues to serve as a military airfield as well,
11/29/06 10:09 PM
This is an interesting detail about the airbase in Germany that article indicates the Tehran POW's were flown into. I assume it is the same one that Reagan mentioned in his speeches, Wiesbaden I think it was.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhein-Main_Air_Base
...
Although origionally envisioned as a bomber base by USAFE, Rhein-Main became a principal European air transport terminal, and was the main western base for the round-the-clock Berlin Airlift operations from June 1948 to September 1949. A special group, the 513th Troop Carrier Group, was formed to manage Berlin Airlift flights. Many of these missions were flown by the following squadrons of the 513th
