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Jan. 16th, 2008 09:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gone_byebyeIn every body of armed forces there are men who don't sit quite right with all the rest of their uniformed brethren. They pass the physical, and they pass the psych exam, but there's something about them... it's not really what their service is looking for. Some of them get stopped early, and sent home before the problems start. Others wash out during training. The rest...
The rest remain, sand in the Vaseline, and people wonder what the hell drew them to the uniform they wear in the first place. They cause trouble. They make people worry. They set their commanders' teeth on edge. But they're there and they survive. What else are you going to do with them but keep them around until you can pass them off on some other unlucky commander? They might be needed someday.
In mid-2006, a Justice Department investigation led by Seda Sarkisian uncovered more than most branches of the United States Government had previously been willing to acknowledge existed. Their delvings into the files unearthed at Foliage Census harked back to the sort of study the top men of Roosevelt's day had undertaken, both in terms of wild technological speculation and in terms of... other things. Foliage Census had only been interested in tracking technological innovation and movement, but they had set their sights on the Ghostbusters at the last, and that meant they had information in their files on subjects so far from technological that no one in the Office of Science and Technology Policy had been willing to touch it. A junior aide at the Defense Department had overheard two of Ms. Sarkisian's investigators talking, though, and she relayed it to her superiors. They thought on it for a while, and then they acted.
The files from Roosevelt's time, sealed by Dwight Eisenhower's presidential order, were unearthed and reopened. One by one, commanders of Marine Corps units across the United States received notifications to review their personnel and make certain recommendations; and, one by one, they thanked their lucky stars that they had finally rid themselves of their most problematic subordinates. Some of them came back, and some of them left the Corps- but fifteen stayed the course, in the end. Their mission was simple: study everything the Top Men had learned, along with everything the Top Men had had to study to get to that point, and figure out how to use it in the field- if that were at all possible. Privately, doubts were expressed, right up until three of them simultaneously sat up in their bunks on the night of December 11th, 2006 and started shouting for the project leader to bring them telescopes now.
It was an event that would not be repeated, despite doubling and tripling their training and practice sessions, until January of 2008- when the televised sight of Admiral Yevgeny Matochkin watching over the Russian president's shoulder as the President shook hands with Canadian and Danish diplomats set all fifteen Marines to screaming...
The rest remain, sand in the Vaseline, and people wonder what the hell drew them to the uniform they wear in the first place. They cause trouble. They make people worry. They set their commanders' teeth on edge. But they're there and they survive. What else are you going to do with them but keep them around until you can pass them off on some other unlucky commander? They might be needed someday.
In mid-2006, a Justice Department investigation led by Seda Sarkisian uncovered more than most branches of the United States Government had previously been willing to acknowledge existed. Their delvings into the files unearthed at Foliage Census harked back to the sort of study the top men of Roosevelt's day had undertaken, both in terms of wild technological speculation and in terms of... other things. Foliage Census had only been interested in tracking technological innovation and movement, but they had set their sights on the Ghostbusters at the last, and that meant they had information in their files on subjects so far from technological that no one in the Office of Science and Technology Policy had been willing to touch it. A junior aide at the Defense Department had overheard two of Ms. Sarkisian's investigators talking, though, and she relayed it to her superiors. They thought on it for a while, and then they acted.
The files from Roosevelt's time, sealed by Dwight Eisenhower's presidential order, were unearthed and reopened. One by one, commanders of Marine Corps units across the United States received notifications to review their personnel and make certain recommendations; and, one by one, they thanked their lucky stars that they had finally rid themselves of their most problematic subordinates. Some of them came back, and some of them left the Corps- but fifteen stayed the course, in the end. Their mission was simple: study everything the Top Men had learned, along with everything the Top Men had had to study to get to that point, and figure out how to use it in the field- if that were at all possible. Privately, doubts were expressed, right up until three of them simultaneously sat up in their bunks on the night of December 11th, 2006 and started shouting for the project leader to bring them telescopes now.
It was an event that would not be repeated, despite doubling and tripling their training and practice sessions, until January of 2008- when the televised sight of Admiral Yevgeny Matochkin watching over the Russian president's shoulder as the President shook hands with Canadian and Danish diplomats set all fifteen Marines to screaming...
