This is Mitzi. She is a Pinchi "Devil-Dog", half Chihauhau and half Minature Pincher. (The Dog from Hell)

Many of my oldest friends were with me at the White House. And many have passed away but we stayed close for over 40 years. We were like a big family then. But, the job always came first. We were told that in the event of a nuclear attack -- and in those days we expected one -- that we would have to leave our familes behind. The mission came first and that was to serve and protect the president before anything else, no matter what!

There were arrangements for providing a secure shelter, like the one we worked in, for the president and his cabinet and other key people in the government, but it didn't include our families. Quite honestly we were not, all of us, completely comfortable with that idea and we occasionally discussed it among ourselves. Some said they would not hesitate, but I was sure I would not do that and given the opportunity to leave I would be with my family in the event of a nuclear attack on us. I'm sure others must have felt that way too. It was my impression that they did. And it was something, in those days, we all thought about.

It was the times. The threat was hammered into us. If you caught someone looking out over the horizon he was probably daydreaming about just such an event. On the right is Jane and our two Chows, Charlie and Tiki. (Sometime in the 80s)

Camp Crystal was secluded and deep inside a mountain in Virginia and it wasn't the only place set aside as an alternative location for the president, his staff and support personnel to go to in case of a national emergency. I heard rumors that there was a way out of the White House through a tunnel to the Potomac and there was a submarine ready to remove the president from harms way, but I never saw it. I also heard talk about another deep site in a mountain out west, but never saw that either. My job was providing crypto communications in the White House, and at Camp David and Camp Crystal, and anywhere the president went.

We worked hard and we played hard. We didn't spend our spare time sitting at home watching television. We would all get together and go dancing and have parties together. There were a lot of those. And, sometimes the president would have a party at the White House for us.

I would sometimes go into the Oval Office when he was there and change the crypto cards in the KY1 machine and he would acknowledge me. Somehow he always seemed to know who we were. He would know our names. He was a good boss to work for. I felt pretty special doing what I did. It was something very few ever experienced and there was a pride in the job. I also maintained and operated the K06 machine and would set it's mechanical rotors each time we established a communications linkup with one of the theaters of operation or the pentagon or somewhere else. And I did other communications work there. We maintained the microwave links between sites and I would sometimes go out to the towers or tweak the equipment and was there when we developed wide-band capability for our television equipment and links to the networks.

When we lived in Winchester, Virginia, which was close to the mountain and Camp Crystal, it was in a dry county, so we would all go over the state line to West Virginia to dance and drink and do the "John Paul Jones" and if anyone asked us where we worked, we would tell them we worked at the weather station. They thought we were all meteorologists.

After reading Michael Harrington's "The Other America" I became a charter member of the Democratic Socialists of America. More Seniors Soon May Face the Other America