CHAPTER 2 – A NEW INDEPENDENT SERVICE
15:06 (Washington Time)
Saturday, November 10, 1973 ‘C’
The Oval Office, The White House
Washington D.C., United States
General Ingrid Dows, Commander of U.S. Space Corps in 1973, at the age of 48.
‘’General Dows has arrived, Mister President.’’
‘’Excellent! Please let her in.’’
‘’Yes, Mister President!’’
Robert Kennedy watched with interest as a tall young woman with blue eyes and reddish-brown hair cut at the neck entered the Oval Office, dressed in the going out uniform of the U.S. Air Force and wearing the four stars of a full general. Robert then had to correct himself: that ‘young woman’ was in reality the same age as he was, 48-years-old, despite appearing to be barely in her early twenties. Like all the other Americans, Robert knew that this was due to a most publicized apparent divine act, when Ingrid Dows had been healed from severe wounds and burns, then rejuvenated twenty years ago while in Israel. Even more, that healing and rejuvenation was not the first such miraculous event connected to Ingrid Dows: in a much less well-known incident, she had both been resurrected and rejuvenated in Guadalcanal in 1942, after being shot down by the Japanese and dying of her wounds on a field hospital’s operating table. Since that miracle in Palestine, Ingrid’s aging rate had seemingly nearly frozen, gaining only a few years in appearance over the course of twenty years. It was not for nothing that many around the United States and in the rest of the World called her ‘God’s General’. However, what enticed her most in the eyes of Robert was her competence, her deep knowledge in geopolitics, her strategic and tactical genius and her talent to advance the United States’ prestige and power with her accomplishments in the aerospace domain. She had in fact just completed another huge accomplishment, having returned only yesterday to Earth after a successful two-year mission to Mars in the flagship of her U.S. Military Space Command, the U.S.S. CONSTITUTION. All that made Ingrid a truly exceptional person, something that made Robert a true admirer of hers. That she was also a beautiful, sexy ‘young’ woman was a nice plus for him. Walking around his presidential work desk, he met Ingrid halfway and shook her hand while smiling warmly to her.
‘’Ingrid, what you achieved during your mission to Mars will truly be in the history books: to have found proofs of both past and present life on Mars, on top of being the first person to walk on the surface of Mars, is downright fantastic.’’
‘’May I correct you on one point, Mister President? The other crewmembers of our landing module and I all stepped at the same time on Martian soil so, technically, I am only part of many.’’
‘’True! But please drop the ‘Mister President’ and call me simply ‘Bobby’.’’
‘’As you wish, Bobby.’’
‘’Good! Let’s sit and talk!’’
Offering to Ingrid one of the sofas placed around a low coffee table set in a corner of the Oval Office, Robert then sat in an easy chair facing that sofa and eyed Ingrid in silence for a few seconds before starting to speak.
‘’First, Ingrid, I want to congratulate you again for your mission to Mars. What you and your crew accomplished greatly enhanced American prestige, which you had already boosted by your many past exploits and successes.’’
‘’Not only American prestige, Bobby: we had quite a few foreign crewmembers aboard the CONSTITUTION, including two Soviet scientists. That mission was truly an international one.’’
‘’But all the hardware was American, much of it designed or invented by you. Mind you, I must say that your inclusion of Soviet scientists into your Mars crew did a lot to warm our relations with the Soviet Union.’’
‘’And that is a part of my mission about which I am particularly proud of, Bobby: I may excel in a war, but helping peace and preventing wars will always be my main goals. My own daughter, Hien, espouses the same philosophy, which is why she became a diplomat.’’
‘’And where is your sweet Hien right now, Ingrid?’’
‘’She works as a junior cultural attaché at the American embassy in Taiwan. Normally, she would have flown back to the United States in time to greet me on my return to Earth, but I told her to stay in Taiwan, with me going instead to visit her there for part of my post-mission vacation time.’’
Ingrid didn’t miss the way Robert Kennedy’s smile faded partly on hearing the word ‘Taiwan’ and eyed him with concern.
‘’Is there something that I should know about Taiwan, Bobby? I must say that, due to the limited volume of telecommunication traffic we could receive aboard the CONSTITUTION, I am not as well informed of the present geopolitical situation as I normally am.’’
‘’Well, we are not sure yet, but there are some disquieting pieces of intelligence which make us worry about Communist China preparing some kind of hostile action against Taiwan. As you know well, China has always claimed that Taiwan is part of its territory and that it would one day reunite it with Mainland China. Also, there are a few worrying signs around Korea, possibly as part of a geopolitical move by China. The Korean government being basically little more than a puppet of the Chinese government, the situation in both of those countries must be assessed together.’’
‘’I agree with you on that, Bobby. I sometimes regret the past advice I had given to President Martin, then to President Dewey, not to attempt to retake the Korean Peninsula after having been expelled from it in 1948. It may have saved us from a ruinous, unending war, but the result of this today is a totalitarian state which makes the world of the fiction novel ‘1984’ look like paradise.’’
‘’I know but retaking Korea, apart from probably costing us horrendous casualties and huge military expenditures, would have stuck most of our army in vulnerable defensive positions along the borders of both China and of the Soviet Union, with long, vulnerable supply lines and no predictable end in sight for that conflict. Your counsels were the correct ones then, Ingrid.’’
‘’Maybe, but I don’t envy the plight of the Korean people, which has to live in what is mostly a prison state ruled by a murderous megalomaniac.’’
‘’Well, since we can’t do much about Korea right now, let’s talk about something else that we can do something about, Ingrid: your new command.’’
With Ingrid listening carefully to him, Robert spoke in a calm, deliberate tone.
‘’Your present command, the United State Military Space Command, is due to officially become on January one of next year a fully independent new military service under the name of the United States Space Corps. It will thus become our sixth independent military service, if you count the Coast Guard, with you as its commandant. Have you started thinking about what it would look like during your return trip from Mars?’’
‘’A bit, Bobby. However, I would need first to know its exact mandate and missions. The messages I got aboard the CONSTITUTION were, uh, somewhat vague.’’
That remark made Robert grin in amusement.
‘’Well, to be frank, you are not alone in not being too sure about what it will do. Everybody wanted a service in charge of Space operations, but I guess that few people thought further past that stage. As usual, things will be mostly left to your imagination and vision of the future. However, the goals that I, as President of the United States, certainly wants to see fulfilled are as follows: first and foremost, prevent and counter if needed any threat against the United States that would come via Space. That would include defense against long range ballistic missiles and enemy spy satellites. Next would be the development, building, launch and operation of our own artificial satellites and orbital space stations, including our Moon Base Alpha. Third, via a civilian branch attached to your new corps and which will be under your direct command, you will continue to be responsible for our civilian space program, which will include the exploration of our Solar System via either robotic space probes or via manned missions like the one you just completed. Finally, I am counting on you to develop, improve and perfect our various space systems, be they rockets, spaceplanes, spaceships, space probes and artificial satellites and orbital space stations. As you can see, all this will be more than enough to keep you very busy for many years to come.’’
Robert was then surprised to see some kind of reservation on Ingrid’s face after he had said his last sentence.
‘’What? Is there a problem with that, Ingrid?’’
‘’Possibly. As you said, all that will take years and even decades to accomplish. However, there is the coming subject of my retirement from the military.’’
Robert nearly jumped in his chair, as if getting an electric jolt.
‘’WHAT? What retirement?’’
‘’My mandatory retirement once I complete 35 years of service, Bobby. Such retirement is spelled in the regulations from Congress about the running of the armed forces. I have already completed 31 years of military service since I joined officially in 1942, thus would technically be forced to retire in a bit less than four years.’’
‘’But, that’s ridiculous! You still look like you are twenty-years-old and I am pretty sure that your physical fitness level would easily be on a par with that.’’
‘’Well, ridiculous or not, it is still the law and too many people would be most happy to cry foul if I tried to bypass that mandatory retirement age. In fact, it would be a very convenient way for all those who hope for me to disappear and get rid of me. I expect some acrimonious debate in Congress if you try to circumvent this in order to keep me in the service.’’
‘’The hell with debating this in the Congress! I will make a presidential executive order to nullify such nonsense. I still have that power and those idiots in the Congress better not argue against it, or I will make them look like chimps in the eyes of the public.’’
‘’I would say that our politicians in the Congress don’t need others for them to look like chimps, Bobby: they do it by themselves all the time.’’
Her joke made Robert laugh briefly before he grinned to her.
‘’Touché! Now that this thing about forced retirement is out of the way, do you have any specific ideas that you may already have about your command?’’
‘’Yes! First, I will want to have distinct uniforms designed and produced for my new independent service. Normally, I would avoid such a large expenditure as being frivolous and expensive. However, part of the Space Corps’ objectives will be to strike the American public’s imagination and make it willing to support the service via the taxes they pay. One direct way to do this is by the appearance of my personnel. I will want avant-garde, distinct uniforms which will both boost the spirits of my personnel and make them stand out from the other military services, while being comfortable and practical. The present uniforms used by our various services, particularly those for officers, are basically little more than civilian suits with a set color and with military insignias and ribbons. I want better than that.’’
‘’And what color would you want to adopt for your Space Corps uniforms, Ingrid?’’
‘’Well, the Army is wearing brown or green uniforms, the Navy wears both black and white uniforms, while the Air Force wears medium blue uniforms. For my Space Corps, I envision dark blue and black uniforms: that would make them distinctive, while they will stain less easily than, say Navy Whites or Air Force Blues. There is another thing that I want for my uniforms: no skirts! Everybody will wear trousers. I still remember how my servicewomen in World War 2 kept being harassed by local bigots for wearing trousers when they went home on leave and were called ‘sluts’ and other bad names. In the case of my servicewomen, their trousers will have flared bottoms and will be adjusted to their owners around the hips and waist, while female vests and shirts will definitely have adjusted cuts.’’
‘’You certainly won’t have arguments from me against that, Ingrid.’’ replied a smiling Robert, who had a well-deserved reputation as a skirt-chaser. ‘’I see that you have already a few solid ideas about what you want for your new command. I won’t delay your vacation further, though: God knows you deserve it after two years spent in space. As for your mandatory retirement, don’t worry anymore about it. As well, I can tell you that the other service chiefs have been told by me in a rather forceful manner that they are not to put any obstacles in the path of their servicemembers who will volunteer for a transfer to the Space Corps. I in fact told Admiral Moorer, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, to keep a sharp eye out for any such roadblocks against personnel transfers to your command.’’
‘’That is most appreciated, Bobby.’’ said Ingrid, genuinely relieved. Interservice rivalry was unfortunately still alive and well in the United States, with the pettiness and small-mindedness often attaining mind-boggling levels. Getting up from her sofa, she again shook hands with Robert, then saluted him before walking out of the Oval Office.