This is my version of my experience as a United States Air Force Officer on nuclear weapon "Quick Reaction Alert", then as an involuntary psychiatric inmate, diagnosed as "paranoid-schizophrenic." The narrative is accurate to the degree one's mind can recall details at seven years remove. Only one brief encounter is imagined. Perhaps the reader can discern that conversation, amongst the many exchanges. The text evolves towards an effort to recount a mystical experience, which can too readily be betrayed by words. Herein, I go to the end of language and confront the last word.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Gregory Berglund
The author was born in North Dakota, USA, in 140, into a family of Swedish immigrants-Homesteaders-that had claimed land belonging formerly to the Lakota Sioux Nation. Raised on a farm, Gregory was saved from a fire at the age of seven during a severe blizzard. The family moved to Oregon where he attended high school in Portland and the University of Oregon in Eugene, graduating with a B.A. in Social Sciences. As a graduating with a B.A. in Social Sciences. As a graduate student in Russian Language he was conscripted into the Army., but opted for Air Force Officer Training School in Texas, where he finished as a "Distinguished Graduate." His first assignment in 1963 was to "Quick Reaction Alert," a NATO nuclear weapon operation in England with targets in the Soviet Union. This "Cold War" deterrent operation took on a "Flexible Response" orientation during Gregory's brief tour of duty in 1966 in intelligence and war planning, and this was very unsettling to the young officer. As his unit mobilized for war in Vietnam, Gregory also discerned loopholes in the command and control system in which he had a supervisory role. Failing to correct the deficiencies, he decided to resign his functions around nuclear weapons. A hospitalization for hematuria led surprisingly to a psychiatrization, and Gregory was assigned to involuntary psychiatric treatment for a period of six months. He was air evacuated to Andrews Air Force base near Washington, D.C. As a diagnosed "paranoid-schizophrenic", he visited the Pentagon and demanded an official investigation into the nuclear weapon alert operation in England. An investigation was conducted. Once released from the Air Force, his travel plans were interrupted by the FBI, and Gregory returned to the Pentagon to meet the personal attorney of the Secretary of Defense. There were attempts to get Gregory back into a hospital, or into graduate studies. But he was determined to flee what he considered an abusive, threatening situation. He managed to leave America for the East Bloc, a quest he undertook to allay his fears of "the enemy". He visited Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union.
There are no reviews yet.