Personal Narrative-Racism

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One trip was with a DCD buddy of mine, Harry Hall. He had a 16’ open cockpit dingy. We camped together and when it came time to go sailing he asked if anyone wanted to go with him. Ricky responded, so the two of them went out on Harry’s sailboat, and we went on ours. It was incredible swimming off the boat; the water was so clear you could see the bottom 15’ down. We sailed out to a swim area and anchored, and Harry sailed off. The winds were gentle at maybe 10 knots, but somehow Harry managed to turn the boat over. They were both in their swim gear so no big deal, right? Wrong!! When we got back that night, Ricky accused me of wanting him drowned. I kept laughing; he kept yelling. He had chided me since, until one day he chose…show more content…
He decided he didn’t like the specification for the LHX engine, so he took classified materials to his house and wrote the entire thing himself. Manufacturers then spent over $500,000,000 designing and produced the engine (which we told him wouldn’t be enough power). The never used engine still sits in storage today. Someone did turn him in for taking classified material to his house and not securing it properly, but as usual, political figures aren’t prosecuted. His writing of the LHX specifications integrated requirements that made it impossible to…show more content…
I think he knew I was planning to retire in a year, and this was a way to get me to stay. I took the job almost immediately went to White Sands Missile Proving Grounds (WSMR) in New Mexico to see how the interactive Janus wargaming Modeling was working. The results were not reflecting what I thought should be, given the input data I knew. The head scientist kept saying; “you’re buying helicopters,” in a snide voice. I checked into the model’s data input, and it was entirely wrong. To this day, I can’t imagine how it got that way because my folks were there when the technicians loaded the data. I stopped the modeling, and we loaded the real data. It took weeks to do that, and it was putting us behind schedule. Finally, the model started running again, and now the chief scientist was saying, “You’re buying TiltRotors”. We took the results to General Woodmansee and the DoD’s chief scientist, and they were aghast. There must be something wrong, that’s not the correct answer. These folks believed in the theory: Let your underlings do their work and if they come up with the response you want, great. If they come up with the other answer, give them a load of questions to answer until they change their mind. Soon after I retired, DCD gave in, and DoD decided on a helicopter. Ambrose, politically tied to Sikorsky, won. The Comanche program that ensued cost $8B,

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