Perspectives, An Intriguing Tale of an American Born Terrorist (19 page)

“They are the rightful owners of the land that is now called Israel,” I answered.

“But where did they come from? There was never a real civilization called Palestinians. And no one wanted that desert over there, until the Israelis started growing figs the size of footballs.”

“I think we should give them New Jersey,” repeated Susan sarcastically.

“That’s not going to solve it,” answered Bob. “You’re showing your ignorance of history and their culture. Israel is not going to give up their patch of desert!”

“They already own New Jersey and most of the Northeast corridor!” came a comment from Jeremy Camp, a pimply Jewish red headed kid from the Northeast.

Everyone laughed.

Soon everyone was chiming in with remarks as extreme as “Nuke the Palestinians,” and as seemingly logical as “It’s Israel’s land….read the Bible.”

As in many of these conversations the crowd quickly thinned, because the conversation required work, and soon Bob, Susan and I were sitting alone.

“Have you been there?” I asked. “I mean to the Middle East.”

Neither of them had.

“Then how do you know what’s really going on over there?”

“Duh, it’s in every paper and on every news program,” answered Susan.

“Talk about propaganda, you might as well read
The Globe
or one of those cheesy grocery store tabloids.”

“Who told you that?” I asked.

He sat silent.

“Have you ever read an Arabic newspaper?

“Um no…..I don’t understand Arabic.”

“Let me tell you what I think. We are completely different from the Arabs in our perspectives and we will always be different. Until we understand what their motivations are and how they see the world, we are wasting our time speculating. In any conversation you will just try to make them like us.”

“How do you know so much about Arabs?” asked Bob.

“I’ve been there, my mother was born an Arab. They’re just different….can we leave it at that?”

Susan shrugged her shoulders as if she didn’t care. Bob switched the TV over to Star Trek.

I loved that the kids at Hillcrest respected my liberal views and never questioned my allegiance to my Middle Eastern roots, just as I never questioned any of their allegiances. As the year progressed and people began to share more openly, we were exposed to other cultures, which, like the Arabs, were terribly misunderstood. Many of the kids were more liberal in their political views than I.

My freshman classes were typical “weed out” type classes, designed to fail all the kids who were not really interested in college and make way for the new wave coming in the next semester. There were several hundred students in these classes which were taught by associate professors or teaching assistants, except for one anomaly, my physics professor, a 70 year old Nobel Prize winner, who requested the freshman physics class, because he thought the first year was the best time to influence a young mind. His name was Dr. Stanley Moore and he took an immediate liking to me, when I approached him after the first week and told him, “I’ve already had all this stuff, would it be okay if I just come back for the final.”

He laughed and crinkled his bushy gray eyebrows, “If you know this, then what are you doing here? You should have been exempt with your Advanced Placement Test score.”

“I only got a 4 on the exam and the university requires a 5 to be exempt.”

“So you don’t know everything?”

“I aced everything that I had in high school. The test covered a few things we didn’t cover.”

“What did you miss?” he asked.

“Conductivity,” I answered. “We didn’t cover it in high school, so I had no idea.”

“So you don’t know everything,” he repeated.

I was speechless from the experience that exuded from his words and presence.

“I’m guessing that I can teach you a thing or two. But I’ll make you a deal. Come to class for a month and if you still think you know everything, leave. And then come back the last 2 weeks, because that’s when I’m covering conductivity and you can take the final and we’ll be done….deal?”

“Deal,” I answered shaking his withered old hand.

That semester, I never missed one of his classes. And after a month, I felt like a fool to have had the audacity to approach someone with his knowledge. I was amazed at the simplicity with which he explained the basics of physics. After a month he approached me.

“Well?” he asked.

I looked at him shamefully.

“Well, have you decided?” he repeated.

“I’m staying,” I answered.

He smiled. He knew that I was in the Hillcrest community and asked, “Aren’t you supposed to find a mentor your first semester?”

“Yes,” I answered.

He nodded, waiting for me to ask him.

I was slow, but finally caught on. “Dr. Moore, would you be my mentor?” I asked.

He smiled and put his arm around me, “So you don’t know everything?”

“No, I don’t know everything,” I answered.

From that day forward he became one of my closest friends and filled the void that had been left vacant by my uncle being so far away. There didn’t seem to be anything he didn’t know, even though he would be the first to admit that he had barely scratched the surface. I met with Dr. Moore once a week and explained to him my hopes and dreams, my political affiliation and my Middle Eastern roots. He wasn’t much on politics, but politely listened as I explained my frustrations.

“What do you want in life?” he asked. “What are you doing here at this university?”

I told him more than anything else I wanted to be part of the team that was working on the genetic screening project.

He scratched his chin as if I had said something that had hit a sensitive nerve. “Be careful what you wish for. When I was about your age, I too wanted to be part of a revolutionary new project, on the cutting edge of technology that was code named S-1. I was going to the University of Chicago when I heard that they were trying to do something that had never been done before. Three of the most eminent scientists in the world: James Bryant Conant, the president of Harvard, Karl T. Compton, the president of MIT and Vannevar Bush, president of the Carnegie Institute in Washington were given a grant to collect a group of scientists and create a self-sustaining nuclear reaction. I wanted to be a part of that team more than anything else, because I knew that it had never been done before. Like you, I was very bright and they were looking for the smartest students to work with these men. They were like gods to me and I had heard that even Albert Einstein was consulting on the project. How excited would you be if all the greatest names in genetics had come together at one place, for one project?”

“Pretty excited,” I answered.

“And you’d do about anything, sacrifice whatever you needed to be involved?”

“Yes, I would do anything, but I wouldn’t look at it as a sacrifice. It’s what I love to do.”

“What if you had to sacrifice your ethics, everything you knew to be right and wrong?”

I stopped to think, but before I could answer he continued, “I knew if I made it to the project, I would get to work closely with my idols and perhaps one day, be like them. Now, all these years later I’m still suffering for what we did. Do you know what we did?”

“Yes, you created the atomic bomb.”

“That’s my legacy, I helped create the Atomic Bomb. I used the very science I love, the knowledge I worship to create the most evil device ever invented by mankind.”

“The United States was at war,” I answered. “If we hadn’t done it, the Germans would have. And they would have had no problem using it anywhere.”

“Actually, we were more afraid of the Russians. By the time we tested the first bomb, the Germans had already surrendered. The rationalization to use it on Japan was very troubling. It was all based on forecast American fatalities. The God Darn Japanese just wouldn’t surrender. We fire bombed them, invaded their outer islands but each soldier would fight to his death.”

He paused, “In the course of the project I made a good friend, named O.C. Brewster. He was one of the most instrumental people in the success of isotope separation. After the Germans surrendered, he became distraught that the project continued. He told me secretly at the beginning of the project he hoped that it would be proved impossible, but now he was tormented with the belief that civilization would be annihilated.” Dr. Moore opened up his wallet and pulled out a wrinkled and yellowed piece of paper and carefully unfolded it.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“It’s a copy of a letter he wrote to the President of the United States.” It took Dr. Moore all of his strength to tell me about it. “He warned the President and told him what would happen. The letter presented the most perfect scientific, philosophical, and moral arguments as to why we should terminate the project and never pursue nuclear weapons.”

“Did the President ever see the letter?”

“We don’t know. He gave the letter to Jimmy Byrnes, the Secretary of State, who told him that he would give it to President Truman. Whether he did or not, no one will ever know. Anyway, O.C. was right. I should have known as soon as I found out that it was a military project that they were going to use whatever we invented to end the war, no matter the cost. But why we enabled man through physics to destroy himself, I’ll never comprehend. And why such brilliant people didn’t see all the ramifications and simply refuse to do it, I’ll never know. Most of us were just naive kids, trying to solve an equation and the results were that we created the atomic bomb.”

I looked over and a tear ran down his cheek. “Be careful what you wish for,” he whispered.

That was the last he ever talked about that project.

In my second year, with the help of a reluctant Dr. Moore, my dream came true. I was chosen to be part of the team that would try to understand and perhaps alter the very make-up of a human being to deter genetic based disease. This gave me the opportunity to work with a think tank of professors, students and an all star medical team from virtually every city in the United States. I still found the time weekly to meet with Dr. Moore, who seemed very interested in how the project was affecting me.

I explained to him excitedly, “These folks are the best of the best! I can’t believe that I have the privilege of learning from chemists, internists and neurologists who had been in this field for several years and graduated from MIT, Georgia Tech, The University of Michigan, Johns Hopkins and several other of the other great schools in the country.”

“Calm down,” he answered. “They are not Gods. Remember above all else, not to be intimidated by them. Intimidation is fear and fear shuts down the brain.”

“Easier said than done,” I replied.

“You are capable of far more than you think you are. These people are no smarter than you, only more experienced and better trained.”

The planning and design of a computer program that would map and display DNA took over a year and Tech used their state of the art integrated circuit laboratory to create with Cray, the world’s most powerful computer. What was most amazing was that their computer engineers manufactured the computer chips in their own laboratory to run this massive machine. It’s funny that by today’s standards this computer would be considered a dinosaur in both size and speed. The computer we used was so large that it occupied an entire floor of Whittemore Hall and was cooled with its own bank of 13 environmental control units. Its purpose was perfectly clear to me, but from the tidbits I picked up, I determined that they were going to use this computer and our research for much more than genetic engineering. Professionals from NASA, the Department of Defense, the CIA and the NSA soon became involved. It seemed that DNA was as important for defense and intellectual power as it was for the good of mankind.

My job on the team was on the bottom of the food chain. I did the grunt work and all the nasty jobs that the professionals thought were beneath them, such as debugging the mounds of computer code, loading tape drives, even getting them lunch. Often I would become so involved in my duties that I would look at the clock and realize that I had worked all the way through the night. Their messy jobs became pure joy to me, especially when I worked with debugging the programming, because it was fun to find supposedly brilliant people’s stupid software errors and I knew if I proved myself the next step would be in the lab. Dr. Moore was right; they were no smarter than I. After I had fixed many glitches that were often no more than careless mistakes, my embarrassed colleagues looked at me with respect for my ability to fix anything. Within 3 months I was promoted to an associate bio-chemist and asked to participate with the more experienced technicians in interpreting the data that was spit out from the computer.

“Don’t let it go to your head,” my mentor explained. “As soon as you think you’re the king of the world, that’s when you are heading for a gigantic fall.”

I tried my best to stay humble. Looking back I realize that during those months I learned more about bio-chemical engineering than I did through the rest of my academic life.

After 10 months the project was done, the switch was turned off and everyone went home. I was left with the papers that I had written for my professors and my personal journal. The last time I saw the whole group together was when we celebrated with a bottle of champagne. At the party everyone was asked to choose a name for this new program we had brought to life and the name Sir Isaac won by popular vote. The President of Virginia Tech honored each of the students who had helped on the project. As my reward, I was given a username and password to access the supercomputer so I could develop my personal computer codes and further develop what I had learned. It was very odd when after working so intimately with so many people for nearly a year, all the medical people and other technicians disappeared back into the woodwork and were gone.

“It is the way of life,” said my mentor. “An ancient Chinese proverb says, ‘The sooner you realize that everything is always changing, the sooner you stop trying to hang on to everything.’”