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Authors: Joe Haldeman
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honors—in 1960. His commission was in the Engineers and he was assigned to the Atomic Power Plant School at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. He took courses at the School and at Georgetown University nearby.
He was Captain Ronald Day and bucking for major, one step from being in charge of Personnel & Recruitment, when he returned to his billet one evening and found Ramo waiting for him in a stiff-backed chair. Ramo was wearing the uniform of a brigadier general and he asked a few favors. Captain Day agreed gladly to cooperate, not really believing the stars on Ramo’s shoulders; partly because the favors seemed harmless if rather odd, but reasonable in view of past favors; mainly because Ramo told him something about what he planned to do over the next decade. It was not exactly patriotic but involved a great deal of money. And Captain Day, O times and mores, had come to think more highly of money than of patriotism.
Ramo’s representatives met with Day several times in the following years, but the two men themselves did notmeet again until early 1972. Day eventually volunteered for Vietnam, commanding a battalion of combat engineers. His helicopter went down behind enemy lines, such lines as there were in that war, in January, 1972, and for one year he was listed as MIA. The North Vietnamese eventually released their list and he became KIA, body never recovered.
By that time his body, quite alive and comfortable, was resting a mile off Shark Key.
3. 5 December 1969
Andre Charvat met Ronald Day only once, at Fort Belvoir, five years before they would live together under Ramo’s roof. Andre had dropped out of Iowa State as a sophomore, was drafted, was sent to the Atomic Power Plant School, learned the special skills necessary to turn radio-active metals into pleasing or practical shapes, left the Army and got a job running a small lathe by remote control, from behind several inches of lead, working with plutonium at an atomic power applications research laboratory in Los Alamos—being very careful not to waste any plutonium, always ending up with the weight of the finished piece and the shavings exactly equal to the weight of the rough piece he had started with.
But a few milligrams at a time, he was substituting simple uranium for the precious plutonium shavings.
He worked at Los Alamos for nearly four years, and brought 14.836 grams of plutonium with him when he arrived via midnight barge off Shark Key, 12 November 1974.
Many other people in similar situations had brought their grams of plutonium to Shark Key. Many more would, before the New Year.
4. 1 January 1975
“Ladies. Gentlemen.” Howard Knopf Ramo brushes long white hair back in a familiar, delicate gesture and with the other hand raises a tumbler to eye level. It bubbles with good domestic champagne. “Would anyone care to propose a toast?”
An awkward silence, over fifty people crowded into the television room. On the screen, muted cheering as the Allied Chemical ball begins to move. “The honor Should be yours, Ramo,” says Colonel Day.
Ramo nods, gazing at the television. “Thirty years,” he whispers and says aloud: “To
our
year. To our world.”
Drink, silence, sudden chatter.
5. 2 January 1975
Curriculum Vitae
My name is Philip Vale and I have been working with Howard Knopf Ramo for nearly five years. In 1967 I earned a doctorate in nuclear engineering at the University of New Mexico and worked for two years on nuclear propulsion systems for spacecraft. When my project was shelved for lack of funding in 1969, it was nearly impossible for a nuclear engineer to get a job; literally impossible in my specialty.
We lived off savings for a while. Eventually I had to take a job teaching high school physics and felt lucky to have any kind of a job, even at $7000 per year.
But in 1970 my wife suffered an attack of acute glomerulonephritis and lost both kidneys. The artificial dialysis therapy was not covered by our health insurance, and to keep
He was Captain Ronald Day and bucking for major, one step from being in charge of Personnel & Recruitment, when he returned to his billet one evening and found Ramo waiting for him in a stiff-backed chair. Ramo was wearing the uniform of a brigadier general and he asked a few favors. Captain Day agreed gladly to cooperate, not really believing the stars on Ramo’s shoulders; partly because the favors seemed harmless if rather odd, but reasonable in view of past favors; mainly because Ramo told him something about what he planned to do over the next decade. It was not exactly patriotic but involved a great deal of money. And Captain Day, O times and mores, had come to think more highly of money than of patriotism.
Ramo’s representatives met with Day several times in the following years, but the two men themselves did notmeet again until early 1972. Day eventually volunteered for Vietnam, commanding a battalion of combat engineers. His helicopter went down behind enemy lines, such lines as there were in that war, in January, 1972, and for one year he was listed as MIA. The North Vietnamese eventually released their list and he became KIA, body never recovered.
By that time his body, quite alive and comfortable, was resting a mile off Shark Key.
3. 5 December 1969
Andre Charvat met Ronald Day only once, at Fort Belvoir, five years before they would live together under Ramo’s roof. Andre had dropped out of Iowa State as a sophomore, was drafted, was sent to the Atomic Power Plant School, learned the special skills necessary to turn radio-active metals into pleasing or practical shapes, left the Army and got a job running a small lathe by remote control, from behind several inches of lead, working with plutonium at an atomic power applications research laboratory in Los Alamos—being very careful not to waste any plutonium, always ending up with the weight of the finished piece and the shavings exactly equal to the weight of the rough piece he had started with.
But a few milligrams at a time, he was substituting simple uranium for the precious plutonium shavings.
He worked at Los Alamos for nearly four years, and brought 14.836 grams of plutonium with him when he arrived via midnight barge off Shark Key, 12 November 1974.
Many other people in similar situations had brought their grams of plutonium to Shark Key. Many more would, before the New Year.
4. 1 January 1975
“Ladies. Gentlemen.” Howard Knopf Ramo brushes long white hair back in a familiar, delicate gesture and with the other hand raises a tumbler to eye level. It bubbles with good domestic champagne. “Would anyone care to propose a toast?”
An awkward silence, over fifty people crowded into the television room. On the screen, muted cheering as the Allied Chemical ball begins to move. “The honor Should be yours, Ramo,” says Colonel Day.
Ramo nods, gazing at the television. “Thirty years,” he whispers and says aloud: “To
our
year. To our world.”
Drink, silence, sudden chatter.
5. 2 January 1975
Curriculum Vitae
My name is Philip Vale and I have been working with Howard Knopf Ramo for nearly five years. In 1967 I earned a doctorate in nuclear engineering at the University of New Mexico and worked for two years on nuclear propulsion systems for spacecraft. When my project was shelved for lack of funding in 1969, it was nearly impossible for a nuclear engineer to get a job; literally impossible in my specialty.
We lived off savings for a while. Eventually I had to take a job teaching high school physics and felt lucky to have any kind of a job, even at $7000 per year.
But in 1970 my wife suffered an attack of acute glomerulonephritis and lost both kidneys. The artificial dialysis therapy was not covered by our health insurance, and to keep
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