HELLO

I just saw a news article about an Icelandic boy who called a secret White House telephone number. He claimed that he was the President of Iceland and asked to speak to President Bush. He got as far as the President's secretary. The FBI showed up at his door before he got a return call from George W.


It reminded me of an occurrence I had in 1967. I was back from Vietnam and had three months remaining on active duty before I would be discharged. I was at Fort Campbell, Kentucky and had the job of notifying others that they had received orders to go to Vietnam. The orders came in from the Pentagon. If the soldier had some good reason for not going, I would assist him in filling out paperwork or telling him to forget it and get used to it. As a result, I had to communicate with the Pentagon by phone once in a while.


I'll never forget that once I called Washington and I evidently dialed the wrong number. A huge deep voice answered the phone, "WAR ROOM!". I was speechless. I didn't know what to say. I didn't know there was such a room. All I could picture was a bunch of Generals and Admirals sitting around a long conference table looking at large maps on the wall. While trying to decide whether to bomb Hanoi or increase troop strength near the demilitarized zone, their discussions were interrupted-by me. As I recall, I didn't say "Sorry, wrong number" or anything else. I just hung up. If the FBI came around, they didn't talk to me.