Patriots

Poisonous snakes. Blood-sucking leeches. Enemy troops eager to destroy him. Forced marches through difficult terrain. Chances of getting back to base on any given day: questionable. Reward: getting to do it all over again in a week or so. Question: Why would a peaceable, intellectually curious student join the army to live this kind of life? What forces had moved him to take part in a war?

Alex White had asked himself these questions more than once. Over time, he came to understand that he was there due to a sense of duty. He believed that his country, indeed, democracies throughout the world, faced serious threats from Communist expansion; every responsible citizen had an obligation as a patriot to oppose that to the best of their ability. So, he joined the army, serving first in intelligence, gathering information on enemy capabilities. When the opportunity arose, he was able to help break up a foreign spy network. This led to his becoming an Army Ranger and leading Hmong warriors in Southeast Asia to call in air strikes and carry out ambushes aimed at preventing North Vietnam's invasion of South Vietnam.

The work was demanding, the enemy unrelenting, the results sometimes questionable. He saw the enemy and his own troops wounded, killed, dismembered. Enemy losses were great, but they never stopped coming. What drove them in their unrelenting effort? This was what Alex had to know, what he continued to ask himself as fought his battles—until he could not.

I invite you to join his quest to know why we are willing to risk death itself to meet our objectives

I was born and raised in St. Francois County, MO, the core of Missouri's Old Lead Belt, where much of the world's lead was mined. During my youth, the lead mines were in full operation, and the rock dumps and chat dumps—created from tailings from the milling of galena (lead sulfide)--formed the playgrounds for my childhood friends and me. Wild rabbits and bobwhite quail were abundant in the woods around the town, and with our twelve-gauge shotguns we brought many of them to our dining room tables. A more delicious meal would be hard to find.

Though I spent a lot of times roaming the woods, I had a powerful desire to learn, and before completing high school had read most of the school and town library's offerings and was frequenting used books stores in St. Louis, about 65 miles away. At age 13, I discovered science fiction, and soon accumulated a library of Amazing Stories, Fantastic Adventures, and the early works of authors such as Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov and others who are now icons of classic sci-fi. Later, at the University of Washington, Seattle, I designed and taught a course called Prognostics: The Interplay of Science and Science Fiction, which explored the interaction of the two fields.

Upon graduation from high school, I was fortunate to receive several scholarships, one of which paid all expenses at the nearby community college. There, a first-rate teacher kindled my interest in international relations. After a year there, I transferred to the University of Missouri, where I majored in Russian and Political Science, with a good dose of hard science courses—physics, biology, astronomy--on the side. My experiences in studying Russian language and acting as an interpreter for a group of Russian exchange students is described in my novel Patriots.

Through their faculty contact at the university, the National Security Agency (NSA) came to consider me as a potential officer and sent a recruiter to interview me shortly before I graduated in 1960. Their interest did not result in a job offer quickly enough for my needs, however, so I joined the army a few months after graduation. I was assigned to the Army Security Agency and was trained at Ft. Devens, MA. While there, using procedures I developed on my own, I was able to become certified in Russian, Bulgarian, Ukrainian, and Serbo-Croatian. How I did that is described in Patriots. After training, I was assigned to Turkey. My language skills led to taking part in breaking up a Bulgarian spy ring, facilitating my promotion to Staff Sergeant, and later enabled me to become part of a paramilitary unit leading Montagnard's on recon missions on the Ho Chi Minh Trail in the early years of the Vietnam War.

Following army duty, I passed a series of tests that qualified me as a Federal Management Intern and chose to work for the Agency for International Development (AID) which is responsible for the U.S. foreign aid program. Following a series of rotational assignments, I became a project manager for a series of projects in Latin America. The AID positions were the most rewarding I ever held. Later, in jobs with Governmental Affairs Institute and Public Administration Service, I served as Principal Associate and traveled to dozens of countries to act as a consultant and to conduct training programs for project managers. My last job was as Washington, DC representative for Black & Veatch Engineers, a global firm that designs infrastructure projects in water supply, wastewater, and electrical power in the U.S. and abroad. I am grateful to the many people who helped me along the way, helping to transform a green sapling into a seasoned oak instead of a weeping willow.

Life is a learning process. I have been happy with the challenges it offers and look forward to continuing to meet them. I thank my wife and family for their love and support, without which, frankly, the words "Author's Biography" would likely not have seen the light of day.

Wayne Weiss

January 2023