Free Psychic Warrior by David Morehouse Page B

wanted me to do: I told her bald-faced lies. I also lied to my father and mother; they thought I was testing new weapons systems for a unit called the Systems Enhancement and Evaluation Office. I was actually working for a unit that trained and inserted operatives into Tier I and II countries—that is, potential “hot spots” in the world—to establish an infrastructure that would support clandestine or covert military operations in that country should the need ever arise.
    Debbie and the children were suspicious from the beginning. They hated this new life. There weren’t any wives’ organizations; there was no mutual support; there were no family days at which the spouses and families of the service members became involved. Dad didn’t wear a uniform, and
his hair grew long. This was not the army any longer, and it was frightening for the family.
    My parents visited after a few months and were guarded as well. At one point when we were alone, my dad told me, “I don’t expect you to tell me what your new job is. Your mother and I know it’s classified. Just be careful. These people are not like what you and I grew up with in the army. They’re cut from a different cloth, and you can’t trust them. Everything you say or do is captured by them for use against you.” I filed Dad’s message away for the time being, but his words never left me.
    I have to admit that some extraordinary noncommissioned officers and officers were assigned to this unit. Not like the Rangers, but good nonetheless. However, there was a lower moral and ethical standard that would not have been tolerated in the army Debbie and I knew. I saw a lieutenant colonel and a sergeant major get in a fistfight over an enlisted woman they were both sleeping with. Both men were married, and yet their punishment consisted of a very pleasant reassignment for the officer. Nothing was done to the sergeant major; he was allowed to remain in the unit.
    Expectations were strange, and methods of management and leadership were even more bizarre. People here were not members of any team. They were loners, independents who merely tolerated authority and had even less respect for the notion of comradeship. That went against everything I’d ever experienced in the infantry; but this was the new school, and I had to learn how to behave. In retrospect, I picked up a lot from the Sacred Cape people: I discovered that there is a dark and perverted side to our army.
    In spite of our best efforts, everything began to change for Debbie and me. From the moment I entered the unit, our life together simply started to unravel. I can’t explain why. Perhaps it was the mystery and the lies deemed necessary by the unit; maybe it was just me and my inability to assimilate myself into this new army I was discovering. Or maybe it was the nightmares and the message. Whatever it was, I was uncomfortable. Almost everyone in my workplace
was a manipulator or liar by trade. I was out of place. Would I become like them, or would I hold my own?
    As I said, these kinds of units come equipped with psychologists to keep track of the mental stability of the unit’s members via frequent assessments of their psychological profiles. It was during one of these updates that I confided in Dr. Innis Barker, a command psychologist, concerning my personal experiences with the bullet, the visions, and the nightmares. Barker was a tall lanky man with a brisk walk and a snappy voice. His face, as narrow as his body, was framed by a well-groomed blond thatch and gold wire-rimmed glasses. He had a Ph.D. in psychology from somewhere … he didn’t have anything on his walls. Oh—and he was quick on his feet. He had to be: he had been called to the Pentagon on numerous occasions to explain “clinically” the activities of several of the unit’s operatives. It must have been difficult to explain away all the bad stuff these guys were