It all started around Christmas time 1997...I’d just arrived in Korea, just separated after seven years of marriage, alone, depressed, and none of my friends were emailing or writing or listening to me. I was still of the opinion "you guys just love me when I entertain you but when I have feelings I'm ignored...I was bitter. I sent a silly email to my old office with the opening line just to be silly and it started. I knew they’d be expecting me to make a moose joke so I played the puppet. So here you are, line by line, just to tell you exactly what it all meant.

1. The moose thing. It started in April 1997. Our office was building folders on some targets we were going to hit...but it was for an exercise, and the country was not real; it was one that was created by the guys in Europe. They gave us info on this imaginary country and said, “Make us folders". I was on a night shift with Jose' and Anthony. Part of our target folders included what we called "collateral damage"...basically, what areas might we accidentally damage if we strike the main target? We try to protect the civilian population (believe it or not, we are a caring Air Force).
So, my boss, Mike Geary told me "use your imagination"...I was creating this target, and for my collateral damage I wrote, “There is a moose breeding farm on this facility, which has a rare, endangered breed of moose" I had a few other strange ones that night, like "a chow hall which has a petting zoo in back that doubles as an emergency food supply during war" but it was the moose thing that stuck with me for the rest of my stay.
Later, in June, I was destroying classified with some airmen who were complaining about doing such mundane work and I told them about the "old days" and how tough my former job was (I was 31 and considered old by most of them). They asked what I did before I joined the service. I told them I worked for the Department of the Interior, and my job was to sniff moose ass. I told them there was a virus spreading among the moose and the only way to detect it was to train rangers on smelling the ass of the moose. I’d be air-dropped into a region, find moose, sneak up on them and smell them. The worst day I can remember was when I was working alone...it was extremely cold, and as I was sniffing this one moose, it farted. The steam instantly froze my nose to the moose ass and it dragged me around for miles before someone found me. I never want to go back to that job.

2. Mike Saxon was a bald Major who ran my section at Langley. He was extremely bald down the middle of his head...he shined. I used to kid him and say,"hey sir, parting your hair down the middle?...makes you look younger"...he was a trip.

3. Ruby is the name of the dog of Mike Geary, my immediate supervisor (the one who said he was nuts). When I was in Turkey he sent me a de-odorizer from a urinal (it was unused) and used to tell me he was going to send me a gift from Ruby....but he had to follow her around for a while first......he called it "Ruby dung".

4. Self explanatory

5-7Self explanatory

8. The Air Force has a new "quality initiative" that is...we have been trying to be customer oriented and we even have offices to monitor this and train us. Many people find it too anal and time consuming and just simply going overboard. Mike Saxon hated quality initiatives and used to groan about them. Mr. Siff was a short, fat, jolly old guy who ran the quality office in my old unit.

9-10 No comment.

11. Pierre is an Airman I used to supervise before I went to Turkey (he's getting out of the Air Force next week....we email at work often). He always shaved his head. He would joke with me about GBU's (guided bomb units...laser guided bombs). It all started in 1996 when we were talking about some of the bombs that can penetrate many feet of concrete and have to have delayed fuzes so they won't go off before they go through all that concrete. And then I thought...what if the delay was so great that it sat there for a while? A guy would be sitting at his computer terminal, and look over and there's a 2000 pound bomb next to him. He grabs the phone,"honey....I love you....no...I won't be home tonight..." We dragged that out too much one day and Pierre was on the floor laughing. Then Pierre used to tell me that he kept getting targeted at his apartment. These GBU's kept hitting his apartment...they'd shine the laser on his head and the bomb would home on him. I told him he should grow hair so it would disperse the laser energy and it would be harder to hit him(we were joking...of course)...hence...the "cat on your head" line...Saxon was bald too...and no...they weren't friends.

12. No comment

13. No comment

14. One interesting phrase which is part of the quality "ten commandments" is "it is easier to ask forgiveness than to ask permission" which is a scary concept when you are dealing with the kinds of weapons we deal with.